To think Jail is the wrong place for this young man

[Ghostsdonttalk]

This is a dreadfully sad story but if this fellow is mentally ill why is he going to Jail?
I thought there were secure units for mentally ill people.

m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-27201736

d.r. is not mental illness.

There's not enough information given for me to make an informed post about this. From the basis of it, I think jail is the correct place.

What is d.r.?

I shouldn't imagine many murderers do it for sane, balanced reasons so YABU.

d.r. is diminished responsibility and it's not an illness. Schitzophrenia is!

It doesn't say he has schizophrenia

The sentence is too short if anything.

Maybe they use jail loosely it doesn't specify prison or high security hospital or that he has or hadn't had a psych assessment.

He isn't a murderer - he's been convicted of manslaughter due to diminished responsibility.

Diminished responsibility isn't a diagnosis as pointed out above but it's a partial defence to murder that can be used where there is a diagnosis of some kind. In this case the jury accepted the boy was delusional and developing schizophrenia.

I agree OP that prison doesn't seem like the most appropriate place and I hope he gets the treatment and support he appears to need.

Plenty of diminished responsibility/schizophrenia cases are managed perfectly well in prison, they don't automatically require hospital.

All prisons have a mental health in-reach team and visiting psychiatrists from local secure hospital units.

Saucy Jack I agree entirely.

It does say the Judge said in his summing up possibility of Schizophrenia.

I have no knowledge of the legal system at all. I just thought someone might be able to shed light on the reasoning.

WhoNicked I think the phrase "managed perfectly well" isn't accurate - in my experience people with mental health issues are almost always fairly poorly served by prison services. He'd be better off in a secure unit if he's so unwell.

It is certainly untrue to say that people with mental health problems are managed perfectly well in prison. Combine lack of resources, time and space with the fact that the people in question are being held all the time with potentially violent criminals and/or with people who have little ability or incentive to understand and tolerate them, and the chances of adequate management or treatment are close to nil.

Many people with mental health problems end up in prison because mental health provision in this country is insufficient. It simply isn't dealt with properly and it's often hidden, until it manifests in violence. YANBU, OP, I agree with you.

Mental health provision in N Ireland is notoriously poor. I know it's not good in the UK in general, but as far as I know there are even bigger problems in NI than other parts of the UK. There have been several tragic cases in the past couple of years of a mentally ill person murdering a parent, and the shortfalls in treatment and supervision have bedn brought up every time one comes to court.

This case happened a few miles from where I live. The judge has accepted he was suffering from a moderately severe depressive episode and experts have said he is on the verge of schizophrenia. He comes from a good, loving family, played sport to a high level and had never been in trouble before and by all accounts was very close to his father. I'm not sure where he should be, but I think everyone involved- including his family who are standing by him- accept he wasn't in his right mind at the time. I take it you know all about the case to come up with that remark coffeetea?

Okay maybe managed "perfectly well" isn't true, but managed, yes.

There aren't nearly enough places in secure hospitals to house everyone in the prison system with a formally diagnosed mental illness. Prisons are very quick to refer to secure MH units as soon as the criteria for "unmanageable" within a prison environment is met.

I think prison is the right place for him. He planned and carried out the execution of his father, planned it, obtaining a weapon, loaded and then reloading the gun to carry it out. He nearly killed his mum but was able to exercise self control and not go through with it. From what I can gather, even the defence psychiatric report didn't recommend a hospital order.

Normal brained people don't murder innocent people so while his brain is obviously messed up and not functioning properly, that doesn't make him any different from other violent offenders, he'll have more in common with his fellow killers, all of whom have abnormal brain function than he would with schizophrenics, psychotics, anorexics and depressives that would have to share space with him if he was put in hospital for mentally ill people.

Joylin I think that's just not true - we have become very focused on a 'medical' reason for crime in a lot of cases (and in this case, that looks right). However people still commit murder because of money, jealousy, sex, to gain freedom or on a whim. Sometimes people do horrible things and it can't be explained away by disordered thinking.