To have some sympathy for Nicola Edgington?

[lougle]

Report from BBC

This woman had killed before. She knew she was a danger to the public. She dialled 999 four times to tell them that she needed sectioning to prevent a killing.

I know she did what she did. I can't imagine what her victims' families are going through.

I do feel some sympathy for her though. She tried to get herself out of circulation.

[Plomino]

Night Vic!

Tomorrow is another day. Take a deep breath and keep on swimming . Hope you feel better soon mate .

[Plomino]

It is inadequate squeaky , I wholly agree . But the problem is NEVER going to be solved . I genuinely think that mental health is viewed as the poor relation of the NHS . Sometimes it's not curable , and investment goes into other departments . Secure units are becoming fewer and fewer, there aren't enough beds , and more and more people , who should be under a proper hospital section, are released either to be treated in the community , which works for a while , or are released because there is no treatment , and you cannot incarcerate someone permanently for having an uncurable personality disorder. Then , it goes wrong , some innocent person gets killed and there has to be someone to blame . Whether that's the hospital staff , police , or local authority .

[lougle]

I started this thread then went to bed, sorry.

I don't blame police officers, they are working within a system and have to comply with its restraints.

I don't blame hospital staff, I was a nurse and know that medical staff are, most of the time, staving off crisis-point rather than giving optimal care.

However, it's a crying shame when someone says "I need to be sectioned. The last time I felt like this I killed someone. I think I'm going to kill again", that nothing can be done to protect the public and save the perpetrator from herself.

We say 'you can't detain someone because they might do something', but actually you can, if the laws allow it.

For instance, a drunk person would be arrested if they were in charge of a motor vehicle. They don't have to be behind the wheel, nor with the engine on. It's the law.

Someone who has been highly antisocial can have constraints put on them to prevent further antisocial behaviour.

Someone who had been convicted of offences toward or involving children can be prevented from working with them.

There should be something in place which takes a person who fears they will kill as they have killed before in similar times, to a place of safety for evaluation.

The biggest tragedy was that an indefinite sentence lasted just 3 years. She would have been detained longer if found guilty of murder and I can't help thinking that's why the judge found as he did. He knew that if he accepted diminished responsibility she'd be out to do it all again in 3 years.

Rinse and repeat

[IlianaDupree]

I'm not blaming police officers at all in any.

The serious issues here, which pose a risk to me, to you, to police, to joe bloggs on the street is a dangerously underfunded MH system. This is unacceptable, people in crisis should not be waiting 6 hrs for assessment and how anybody can say "yeah but she walked out" is her fault, sheesh!

Mental health services seriously need looking at or are we to just wait for another murder? Who'll be next? police? child? it shows massive disrespect to the victim too

[Dawndonna]

Yanbu.
I don't blame the police. Somebody, somewhere should have checked a computer, we all know that much. However, it is known that all social workers/CPNs etc will do everything they can not to section someone or even provide a voluntary bed unless they absolutely have to. Beds are hard to come by these days. In my area, providing a bed can be anywhere within a 100 mile radius these days. It used to be a maximum of ten, but the government started closing things and not replacing nurses, social workers and CPNs who retired, they offered some early retirement. Our local 20 bed unit only has staff for six.

[Meglet]

IME MH services were pretty threadbare 15yrs ago. I was not dangerous like this woman but was severely depressed and becoming suicidal. I asked my GP for counselling and more support for weeks and all I got was tablets. Following my first overdose I briefly saw a psychiatrist who had the nerve to delicately suggest I needed to speak to someone, as soon as I said I'd been asking for weeks the mood changed and they weren't as interested. Took 2 more overdoses that summer before I was given a trainee counsellor. Looking back I really don't know how I survived that year.

Funnily enough my sister now works in mental health and she's bloody raging at the revolving door system these days. She struggled for a long time and nearly left but she's decided to stick with it and is just getting arsier and louder with the powers that be when things start to fall apart at the seams.

[sashh]

She left. They can't keep everyone in hospital who wants to leave. That would be a violation of their human rights.

Which is why she needed sectioning.

A and E is not the place for someone like this.

[youfhearted]

i blame the government.

she was in a secure hosptial due to her schizophrenia for 4 years after killing her mother
then put in the care of the community.
pah.
but now, she is sent to jail, for murder, what is the difference, is she not schizophrenic any more?

[LadyPessaryPam]

This is an interesting POV on what's happening. It's very worrying, I have 1st hand experience of the results of someone with a long history of schizophrenia requesting to be sectioned at the hospital being turned away despite the police taking him there and really wanting him kept there. He came home and cut his mothers throat (she was a teacher) and then his own in the front garden just 50 yards away from our kids school. I could see that could have played out even worse if he had decided in his psychosis that all teachers needed to die.

Read inspectorgadget.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/partner-agencies-in-meltdown-shock/
It's an eye opener.

[Owllady]

She could of voluntarily be taken into a psychiatric unit though without being sectioned couldn't she? it sounds that's what she was asking but nothing was available (or have I completely misunderstood) My BIL has had several breakdowns and has never had to be sectioned as he has always agreed to go (he has delusions and completely body shut down type epidsodes)

[LadyPessaryPam]

Jack Straw signed the form to let her out after 3 years of an indefinite sentence originally. He will sleep well at night as someone else is getting the blame so that is alright.

[Latara]

I was very ill in the summer, no-one listened to me because i had a Borderline Personality Disorder diagnosis (now i've been told i have only 'some traits' of BPD, as many people do).

I was actually in the middle of a Psychotic episode - now the Psychiatrist is trying to decide on a proper diagnosis & i'm taking Anti-Psychotic medication which is working very well.

It took months before i got given the right medication.

I actually wanted to stab myself, i was paranoid & delusional & smashed up my kitchen then broke the knife in half so i couldn't stab myself. My sister called the police who were lovely - but the CMHT took hours to come & wouldn't section me despite the police's request.

I'm still a bit unwell now but recovering. I still get intensely angry over things so i know i'm not better yet - luckily i now have a CCO (psychiatric nurse) who i see regularly.

YANBU. The crime in the OP was terrible but i can see exactly how it happened.

[fromparistoberlin]

just an awful awful tale

it must be horrible to be a murderous schizophrenic, well obviously! silly comment

but yanbu, everyone is fucked

she is
her family are
the families of her victims


she should not have been released

[WishIdbeenatigermum]

Should psych have access to the PNC?
Judge's summing up was strange.

[youfhearted]

no doubt jack straw signed the release due to psychiatrist's advice, probably due to needing the bed in the secure unit.

[LadyClariceCannockMonty]

YANBU. It's appalling and tragic for all involved; Sally Hodkin and her family of course, but also a desperately ill woman who was aware of her own predicament.

The summing up is a classic example of dusty old judges who ought to be forcibly retired.

[LadyPessaryPam]

I think the judge was trying to avoid another indefinite sentence which would be terminated at 3 years again resulting in another death further down the line. He was playing the system, The law and the MH system is broken, and there there is no political will to do anything about it.

[BridgetBidet]

Hmmm, having some experience of both these conditions (schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder) there is a big difference.

When someone with schizophrenia kills they do it out of a genuine fear for themselves or their family. The illness makes them paranoid and terrified and they honestly believe that the person they harm is some kind of threat. The pitch of fear and illness that drives people with schizophrenia to commit these crimes is hard to describe it's so extreme.

Borderline personality disorder is a different kettle of fish, and yes it sometimes make the sufferer extremely manipulative. Rather than being genuinely terrified and not in their right mind it can be a totally conscious decision to kill someone. For example if the sufferer decides that what they want right now is to be sectioned they can be capable of deciding 'Right, well if I attack somebody they'll HAVE to section me'. And then go right ahead and do it purely because it will get what they want.

It seems like the fact that she essentially 'got away with' the first murder was a result of that manipulativeness too. She knew what she should say to get away with it and managed to con psychiatrists into thinking that she was suffering from a condition she wasn't.

Many, many murderers suffer from some kind of personality disorders, it doesn't make them less culpable. Jimmy Savile, Fred West, Denis Nilsen, all candidates for a serious personality disorder. Borderline personality disorder doesn't stop the sufferer from knowing right from wrong or distort their thinking to an extent that they are incapable of knowing what it is anymore. It's just that sometimes some sufferers don't care what's right or wrong, only about what they want.

I do think that the system failed everybody in this case. But I think that 'sympathy' is a bit of a strong word for Edgington. She consciously decided to commit these acts, she wasn't driven by an illness.

I do understand the judges summing up, she manipulated her way out of one murder charge and the second murder just seems like another part of a big manipulative plan.

[LadyPessaryPam]

Did JS murder people too?

[youfhearted]

her defence said she had schizophrenia while the prosecution said boarderline personality disorder
presumbly from two separate psychiatrists.

[BridgetBidet]

Fromparistoberlin. Of course she shouldn't have been released. But it's not that simple. She managed to con people within the MH system and the courts into believing she was suffering schizophrenia.

To a certain extent in MH care the people caring for the patient are dependent on what the patient is telling them because it's all going on in their head. It's not like a rash or a tumour you can see.

She convinced the people caring for her that she was schizophrenic then convinced them that she was cured, or that her condition was being effectively managed. Which was presumably easy when she had never suffered from it in the first place.

She was being treated for schizophrenia, she managed to convince people that this was no longer a problem - how could they keep holding her when she wasn't apparently ill any longer? The BPD was undiagnosed and the schizophrenia was apparently under control.

When you have someone who is skilled at manipulating to this level I think it would be very, very hard for normal health professionals to realise what's going on.

[BridgetBidet]

No LadyPessary. Perhaps I should have said serious criminal instead.

[BridgetBidet]

Youfhearted, the court found that the prosecutions case was true.

[Kiriwawa]

But Bridget, as others have pointed out, if the court had found she was suffering from schizophrenia, then she would have been out in 3 years. So perhaps accepting the BPD diagnosis was expedient more than anything else.

I had no idea that the system was failing MH patients so badly. This thread is a real eye opener

[SnowyMouse]

I thin this is an interesting read from police perspective.