Hello,
I am hoping to be lucky enough that some Mumsnetters with knowledge of magistrates' courts and law in general are around.
Sorry, this will be long.
I'm very concerned about a relative who has MH problems and has got caught up in the criminal justice system - feel for her and want to help her but am completely at a loss.
She has a court date next week.
I am furious at the way she's been treated tbh, at the way many people with mental health issues are treated by the law, and have spoken to her solicitor who feels the same.
There's little I can do to help practically as I know nothing about this area. I've tried everything I can think of. This situation is affecting her MH badly.
All the services and systems that are supposed to help her seem to have let her down. She feels they hate and are against her, and is suicidal.
She is really distressed, drinking to excess then texting me and others saying she is suicidal, sees no future for herself with a criminal record (she wanted to work with other people with mental health problems, having been through it, but obviously feels this cannot now happen) and we would all be better off if she wasn't here. She is then very apologetic and says she is a burden, ignore her, she is actually fine. She is not fine (she has acted as if she is OK then attempted suicide before). She has been in psychiatric hospital several times, including having been sectioned.
I think this issue is stopping her from recovering and until it is dealt with, she won't move on.
Relative had no offending history until she became unwell (but feels no-one believes this). The offences are relatively minor. Not to make excuses, she is aware her actions weren't acceptable and in fact I think the shame and guilt and self-loathing is crippling her.
For context, the last offence was now over a year ago.
Unfortunately things ended up so she has had numerous court appearances since then. She says she built herself up for each one and can't do it again, won't appear in court and will commit suicide before the next court date. Some of this is down to her not appearing for some dates. She was terrified, not deliberately being disrespectful. There have then been several times when court adjourned because they wanted further information such as psychiatric reports from her mental health team.
The original offence in 2012 was harassing an ex. He sounds possibly abusive and definitely callous - messing her around about how the relationship stood, eventually dumping her by text message after a 4 year (on/off) relationship when she was already shaky mentally. (His friends have also been sending her nasty messages telling her to just kill herself, taunting her about getting arrested, calling her a psycho b*tch etc - she told police this but they refused to believe her). I understand he couldn't deal with her mental health issues but could shake him for dealing with this in such a nasty way.
Initially police just gave her a warning as she was in a psychiatric hospital having attempted suicide (due to his behaviour). She continued to contact him (I know, she was an idiot to do that and I have told her this). I don't remember the details but long story short, she ended up arrested and held in a police cell for 2 nights, having not long been discharged yet again from hospital. The second night was 'for her own safety' - but being held for so long further traumatised her. Surely if police were that concerned they should have got her psychiatric help instead? She behaved so disturbingly after her release that her flatmate at the time ended up taking her to A&E - but once flatmate had to leave her, she walked out and took an overdose requiring medical treatment.
A restraining order was issued. She still continued to contact him for a few months. Ended up arrested again (came to the attention of police as she was again self-harming and suicidal) and was remanded in custody until sentencing, for a few days, again because the magistrate was supposedly concerned for her safety, and because apparently the mental health team who are responsible for assessing whether people are fit to attend court and plead were not available until then! I really don't understand this. How can it be humane to hold someone in prison for being suicidal?! She hasn't got over it, says she is bad and dirty, 'stained' by it. Apparently she self-harmed in a disturbing way while in there (which staff didn't bother to notice, far from being attention-seeking she didn't tell them. I met her to offer support and she was clearly also physically unwell, I dragged her to GP, turned out the wound was infected which is how I found out). She again attempted suicide a few days after release).
She was given probation, seems to have found this difficult. Instead of understanding probation seem to have disliked her, given her hoops to jump through that she couldn't (eg attending morning appointments when she had explained that due to her sedating medication and depression she sleep s very late). Of course she failed, and was returned to court for the breach of probation.
Just over a year ago she was also accused of malicious communications, somehow she seems to blame this person for her being arrested while suicidal and was generally in a lot of mental pain and lashed out. She now knows this was wrong. She just wasn't able to think rationally at the time. She sounds as if she was quite delusional, thinking this person was out to get her.
As I said, this was now a year or so ago. The original court date for both these further offences - malicious communications and breach of probation - was in August. It has been adjourned several times.
The issue seems to be that the court asked for a psychiatric report. Despite them having repeated this several times, her mental health team have refused to produced this.
I think we have established that the court requested but did not order the report. Therefore her psychiatrist didn't have to do it.
Unfortunately my relative had already complained about this psychiatrist (who had an unpleasant manner and basically wasn't interested in helping her and saw her as just attention-seeking), so she said she was not happy for him to do this report as she felt he was against her and wouldn't be objective, and so report would go against her, not help her. She was uncomfortable discussing the deeply personal and sensitive issues around the offences with him. So she asked the CMHT if another psychiatrist could complete it. The CMHT basically said tough, no other psychiatrist will do it, so she reluctantly 'agreed' - she had no choice. An appointment was made for said report, according to my relative the psychiatrist spent this talking about just about anything else and at the end said that he wouldn't do the report after all, as she had initially not agreed to it. He will not budge from this.
The CMHT finally allocated her another psychiatrist, but are refusing to consider that the new psychiatrist complete the report, and she has not yet seen her - there is an appointment, but after her court date.
From e-mails between her solicitor and the court, the court view her as being un-co-operative - when she would willingly go to an appointment with any other psychiatrist. There have been numerous e-mails between my relative's solicitors, court staff (I'm not sure what exactly their role is) and the CMHT. I have seen some of these e-mails. Psychiatrist seems to be doing his best to cover his backside and paint my relative as the un-co-operative, troubled girl. My relative is desperately worried that the magistrates will fall for all this.
Where do we go from here?
Apparently her solicitors could appoint an independent psychiatrist. They have refused to do this, on the grounds that 1. there wasn't time before the court date, they don't think court will adjourn yet again and if they did don't believe that is in her best interests; 2. they don't feel a psychiatric report is necessary. I have spoken to them. They are as appalled as I am by the way she has been treated - I don't have any doubts about them.
I do have doubts about the magistrates - especially after
Magistrates don't seem to have any understanding of mental health issues, and apparently have spoken to her very harshly. She is terrified, convinced she will go to prison.
Apparently probation were initially unhelpful, but appear to have realised what has happened to a vulnerable girl and will be recommending to the magistrates that she gets a 'conditional discharge'. From my reading (ie Google) my understanding is that this means that if she doesn't reoffend for a set period of time, no further action happens. (She hasn't reoffended since, it has been a year). Do magistrates usually listen to such recommendations? They clearly haven't been convinced about a conditional discharge before.
What if she gets a particularly harsh magistrate/ one who is having a bad day/ one who doesn't like her face? Who is prejudiced against people with mental health issues?
Would the lack of a psychiatric report make them conclude she doesn't really have mental health problems or they aren't that serious?
Malicious communications has a maximum sentence of 6 months' imprisonment. She wouldn't come out alive.
She was shaking in court, took pills with her to overdose if she got sent to prison.
She attempted suicide before the last court date, so it has yet again been adjourned. (CMHT don't seem at all concerned. I have spoken to them several times and been dismissed).
She is convinced that without a report the magistrates won't believe she really has mental health problems and will 'think she is a terrible person'. I am genuinely concerned she won't attend, and will harm herself again - and even succeed in taking her life.
I have tried CAB, Mind, no-one seems to know where we go from here. Please help.
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Help Please
PurpleShoes69 · 24/04/2015 01:53
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