A friend of the Briton who committed suicide in Mount Carmel Hospital’s forensic unit managed to raise money through a crowdfunding appeal to help pay for his funeral in Malta because “he deserves a proper burial”.

Richard Paxton, 45, who was being detained in a single room with CCTV cameras, hanged himself on January 9 in the early hours of the morning, and passed away some time later at Mater Dei Hospital. He had been arrested for drug-related offences.

Writing on a crowdfunding website, Karim Ayoubi – who describes himself as Mr Paxton’s friend since the mid-1990s – said that his body was expected to be released by January 26 latest and that the funeral would be held a couple of days later.

“As you probably know, Richard died tragically while in custody in Malta. The exact circumstances of his death are unknown, and we await news from the inquest. His body will be released soon and we are trying to arrange a funeral for him. I am sure that all of Richard’s friends would like him to receive a proper burial. At the moment, his ex-girlfriend Yaz is kindly making arrangements out in Malta, but it is not right that the whole cost of the funeral should fall on her,” Mr Ayoubi wrote.

The target amount was set at £650 (€856 £500 to cover the funeral and £150 for Mr Paxton’s brother Andy’s flight to Malta. The sum arrived in under 24 hours, with a total of £720 collected as pledges from Mr Paxton’s friends poured in.

There was a lot of good in Richard.May he rest in eternal peace

“Rallying to the call because that’s what friends do,” one friend wrote. “There was a lot of good in Richard, and Andy and Yaz need our support now. May he rest in eternal peace.”

Mr Paxton’s death in custody followed a few weeks after that of Marlon Oto Kai Hanratty, 36, from Stuttgart, who was found hanged at the Floriana lock-up in December.

In October, Martin Fenech, 39, from Żejtun, died an hour after he was found with a bed sheet around his neck at the police headquarters.

Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Abela, whose portfolio encapsulates both the police force and the correctional services, said that he had commissioned an internal inquiry on Mr Paxton’s case.

He also ordered the Board of Visitors of Detained Persons to draft a report to evaluate the conditions at Mount Carmel Hospital’s forensic unit and at the lock-up of the police headquarters.

But questions about whether the inquiry will be made public and why an independent one was not ordered remain unanswered.

The composition of the board of inquiry – which includes the head of detention services, Colonel Mario Schembri, and the chief executive of the Agency for the Welfare of Asylum Seekers, Mario Schembri – was heavily criticised, with the Nationalist Party arguing that it was not prudent of the government to ask the head of detention services to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of a person in detention. Col. Schembri has not yet been granted security clearance.