Nottingham attacks - verdict

[DrunkenElephant]

I live in Nottingham and feel terribly sad reading the news today.

Could these deaths have been avoided if the police and mental health agencies had done more? But then how can more be done when services are on their knees?

I don’t know the answer to either question, but my hearts go out to the families of Barnaby, Grace and Ian.

The families are so dignified in the face of unimaginable pain and grief. They have been so badly let down.

He didn't take his medication or engage with services because he likely did not believe he was sick because he was psychotic.

He didn't choose to kill them instead of himself as some kind of conscious decision like you would make.

People who are experiencing psychosis like this do not understand what they are doing in the same way you or I do. They believe things to be real that simply are not real. They often hear and see things that are not there. They often don't believe they are sick.

You talk as if he just had some mental health problems and was a bit depressed or something when in reality his condition means he was experiencing a complete break with reality. It's completely different level of mental illness.

"Manslaughter was the correct charge regardless of people's emotions about it.... Slapping on a murder charge when it doesn't meet the criteria of murder because people feel strong feelings about it isn't appropriate."

Apologies if this has already been said, but to the PP who posted the above comment" Actually he did face a murder charge. But the CPS accepted the partial defence of diminished responsibility, which reduced the charge he was convicted of to manslaughter.

I can understand that the family might have felt the court proceedings concluded very quickly for such a grave case. However, going through a murder trial when the expert psychiatric evidence was clear and unanimous would have been harrowing and pointless for all concerned, especially the families.

I do think there needs to be a wider inquiry into all the missed opportunities in the lead up to that terrible day. How many more cases like this before something changes - secure psychiatric hospitals are full of people with similar stories of a system which so badly let them down with the nost awful consequences.

I feel so sad and angry for the families.

The hospital sentence must feel like the final insult, as is the fact he’d been out for arrest at the time of the attack.

@dottypotter on the mental health boards right now is a thread from a seriously ill woman. Go have a read of her thread - just read her posts and look at the decline in her mental state in just a couple of weeks. This is someone who was actively asking for help two weeks ago.

We need to all be advocating for better mental health support. More inpatient facilities and better inpatient facilities and care. You're right it's wrong that he was on the streets that night - he should have been somewhere safely being treated. These tragedies will continue to happen until we support people with mental health illnesses properly.

He lacked insight into his illness, precisely because he was so ill. A failure to take meds in this case wasn't irresponsibility or selfishness or any other morally loaded term. It was a function of his very severe, desperately distressing psychosis.

Seems to me there is a very strong case here for care in the community to be taken back out of the community.

If they are this ill, they should be kept well away from the public.

Absolutely they should.

But until mental health services are properly funded, it won’t happen. We see constantly the effects of cuts and lack of funding to vital services - mental health care, social care services, the police. It needs to change. It is literally a matter of life and death.

Advocating for the beating to a pulp of severely unwell individuals because you don't understand psychosis is pretty vile tbh.

I don't know what you think high security psychiatric hospitals are like tbh but they are not pleasant happy places.

Anyone remember Margaret Thatcher's Home Secretary, Virginia Bottomley?
She closed psychiatric hospitals because they cost money.
Proudly instigated "Care in the Community."
A horrendous mistake. No proper supervision re medication just one of the results of this cynical, uncaring legislation.

Care in the community is a disaster.
Mental health facilities are also a complete disaster

The whole mental health system needs a considerable overhaul.

A tragic case

of course if services were better funded, if how agencies work together were not so stretched this could have likely been prevented

but the nature of his illness can be incredibly hard to manage, given his recent history he should not have been living in the community he needed monitoring around his medication but then so so many people do even with medication for many remaining stable is a battle changes in lifestyle, stress, physical illness, alcohol, drugs and just deterioration in the condition can lead to confusion, can lead to non compliance with medication, delusions, hearing voices (many people do even when medicated)

I can understand why the family feel he should have been charged murder maybe some feel prison is the right place for him not a secure hospital

I personally think the sentencing is correct (from what I have read/reports on tv) services have let all involved down and secure hospitals are certainly not the easy way out as some appear to believe

I can understand the families feeling like this because they are so emotionally tied to the situation that is bound to impact how they think and feel about it and it is very sad for them, but it makes no sense for anyone else to feel like this.

It makes no sense for people to be angry or upset that someone chose not to take Medication, chose to go out and obtain a knife and then violently attacked and murdered 3 people?
What I don't get is why he if he had no control and was attacking people because he just had to, why didn't he attack the security guard who challenged him?

@dottypotter and @Hungrycaterpillarsmummy absolutely fucking wow! Go and educate yourself, beating a mentally ill person to a pulp who had no control of what he was doing, it wasn't with intent he literally has no sound mind, he didn't choose to lose his mind he has zero control. Disgusting comments you should be ashamed of yourselves. Yes those innocent and defenseless people did not deserve to die but this was done by somebody who believed the voices in his head telling him to do this awful stuff was true and oh he should take his medication, he mentally cannot think straight there is no choice in this illness, it is like being possessed and it is fucking awful all round

@WhereIsBebèsChambre because in his head maybe the security guard was of no danger to him, of course neither were the other victims we know this but people with this illness get so paranoid and convinced certain individuals are after them

@WhereIsBebèsChambre no because you can make a choice and know that your friend is wrong if you have a sound mind but if you don't have a sound mind you listen and believe the voices in your head

"chose not to take medication"
"Chose to go out"

If you don't believe you need medication because you do not believe that you are sick why would you choose to take medication that makes you feel in physically awful on the say so of a doctor you believe is part of a conspiracy to make you sick?

You are applying a level of awareness and capability to this person that they did not have because they were experiencing a break with reality because of their serious psychosis inducing condition.

People who are experiencing such an break with reality are still people. They can respond different to different people etc having no control over your experience does not mean you have no control and are running rampant nessiccarily. It could be that he believed that the people he did attack were spies, or a danger to him, or deamons, and he did not think that of the security guard, he could have been thinking a whole heep of things that do not make any sense to you or I but is very very real to the person experiencing psychosis.

Basically you do not understand psychosis or paranoid schizophrenia and are speaking about this man as if he had a capacity that he does not have our of ignorance.

No tbh it makes absolutely no sense for people not personally connected to this incident to completely fail to look at it objectively because they are emotional about it. It makes zero sense for anybody who is not personally connected to these events to be angry with this man instead of the systems that failed him and it makes zero sense to someone who is not personally connected to these events to be angry that someone has been detained for life under a manslaughter charge for diminished responsibility due to severe illness instead of jailed for murder and our in 20 years on a parole all because they prefer the word murder to manslaughter. The only people it makes sense to feel like that are the family and friends who are grieving and personally impacted. Everyone else should be able to look at this objectively and see that this is an extremely sick person who has now sadly commited a terrible act that could have been prevented if our mental health systems were not completely failing people.

I hear what people with what sounds like specialist knowledge saying about different reality of schizofrenics, but still thinking - when he was pushed away from the window by that man - he didn't pursue whatever his reality was telling him in that man's house; he quickly gave up to the police (luckily) - it's quite confusing that he was quickly back to normal reality when he was himself in danger of being hurt...

Update: looks like similar question was answered further up the page

I don’t think people understand what secure facilities like Broadmoor and Ashworth are like. They aren’t like normal hospitals at all and are basically prisons with psychiatric facilities. I’ve visited Broadmoor as part of my psychology course, spent the whole day there, and it felt every bit as much of a prison as when I later visited Brixton prison for an interview. It’s not like he’s going to be getting a better time of it because he’s detained in a secure mental health facility.

He wasn't completely back in normal reality. This is not how these conditions work.

Someone experiencing psychosis can still feel threatened by something and back off. Some are able to trick and manipulate people into thinking they are weller then they are because they they think it they convince someone they are well and have learnt to say the right things and play the game they are able to go home.

People who are paranoid schizophrenic or experiencing psychosis are still people and will have human reactions to things.

We don’t know that

he may have perceived people that were in no way a threat to him as hiding something and were the threat

you are trying to apply what makes sense to you and you simply can’t

I don't think people in this thread seem to understand what even a basic non criminal psychiatric hospital is like, nor what being treated for mental illness against you will is like.

This man isn't having a fun nice happy time in hospital

@Universalsnail THANKYOU. I am so glad for everything you have said, I agree with it all and some of the ignorant comments on here are so upsetting especially when this illness is so close to you in your family, for people to want to treat them like animals and beat them to a pulp for being handed an awful illness to survive with because it isn't living it is surviving and in no way am I saying this against the victims it is truly awful but as you said it is for their families to be angry and non sympathetic to him.

The intent wasn't there to kill people, his brain was taken over he could not make any rational decisions and actually when he is given medication noe he is locked up and can be watched I imagine if he regains any normal thinking he will be haunted by what he has done if he even has any recollecrion of it.

So true.