A prison seen from behind its parking lot on an overcast day.

The coroner’s inquest into the deaths of five Niagara Detention Centre inmates between 2018 and 2022 opened with a lawyer reading heart-wrenching stories from some of the families and the medical officer of health testifying on the high opioid death rate in the region. All five men died of drug toxicity within 10 days of being transferred to the detention centre in Thorold, Ont.