Another selfish, selfish man furious that no one was paying attention to him

[Notusuallyshocked]

This just makes me so angry...

www.suffolknews.co.uk/ipswich/news/man-who-shot-wife-and-left-her-to-die-as-he-ate-breakfast-is-9222020/

He shot his wife and left their children to find her body because she 'wasn't paying enough attention to him or his needs'.

As the judge said, 'she was carrying the entire burden of running that house whilst you took to bed.'

An 8 year minimum sentence doesn't seem long enough. Another example of undervaluing women's lives.

That’s not the sentence. It’s a minimum of 8 years, and he’s been sentenced to a psychiatric hospital - and they are extremely difficult to get out of. He’s mentally ill and has been treated as such.

@SammyScrounge

He was given a life sentence of 16 years with a minimum of 8 years to be served in a psychiatric hospital.

Indeed. No one ever reads the actual article.

www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/evidence-and-research/learn-more-about/3633-risk-factors-for-violence-in-serious-mental-illness

Can we just be careful here that we don’t allow a narrative of ‘those with a serious mental illness are more likely to be violent’ to come about. That’s simply not true. It’s been years since I had training in such matters but the stats didn’t suggest that then and they still don’t seem to (see above) Serious mental illness was a factor in this case. It sometimes is in other cases but there are thousands of people living with severe mental health issues that represent NO danger to the public. They don’t make the news.

Care in the community, whilst poorly funded, was done on ethical and efficacy grounds. Institutions weren’t working. People were kept in them too long. It was harder for them to recover.

There is a difference between an acute mental health ward (where we would be admitted if we needed such intense support) and psychiatric secure units (where you go if you represent a danger to others). I’m fuzzy on details as it’s been years since I worked on psychiatric wards but we really need to be careful NOT to further stigmatise mental health issues (we are all a couple of significant life events away from a serious MH diagnosis).

Most people fortunately aren’t violent. Some of those will have a diagnosable and serious mental health problem. Some people sadly are violent. Some of them will have a diagnosable and serious mental health problem. For some, their symptoms/state of mind will be, at least in part, responsible for the their violent actions.

He’s mentally unwell, with diagnosed psychotic episodes and had diminished responsibility. That makes him a very different type of offender and the sentence had to reflect that.

MH issues don't happen in a void though, otherwise we'd have a similar number of women committing murder in similar circumstances, they happen with the backdrop of a misogynistic society.

It doesn't mean that he had the capacity to realise what he's doing, but just because he lacked capacity doesn't mean his murder doesn't have misogynistic undertones.

Also, what happens after 16y if he isn't any better?

@SammyScrounge

He was given a life sentence of 16 years with a minimum of 8 years to be served in a psychiatric hospital.

That's a contradiction in terms. Either it's a life sentence, or it's 16 years. A life sentence is literally that - although you may be let out on licence, you can be recalled to prison at any time for the rest of your life. Reports in other papers say it was a life sentence and don't mention 16 years, so it appears that that's a mistake in this report.

@CheshireChat he will not be released if he is considered to still be a danger to himself and/or others. Just as he won't automatically get to go before a parole board after his 8 year minimum sentence a panel of psychiatric professionals will decide if he is well enough ie no longer a threat to himself and/or others before he is allowed to apply for parole.
This man whilst technically serving a sentence is actually being held under the mental health act which means that if he is considered to be no longer a danger to himself and/or others before his minimum term is up he would be transferred to a prison to serve the remaining term, this is not something that happens lightly as the doctors generally err on the side of caution. That said if he never recovers he will never be released because that is how the mental health act works. A panel of psychiatric professionals look at everything including whether the patient is likely to continue to take any medication or ingage in any ongoing treatment if they think that he won't and would relapse they won't release him so in theory he could remain in a secure MH facility (like Broadmoor) until he dies

Hoardasurass thank you for explaining all that . I was hoping that would be the case.

@Lostmarbles2021

www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/evidence-and-research/learn-more-about/3633-risk-factors-for-violence-in-serious-mental-illness

Can we just be careful here that we don’t allow a narrative of ‘those with a serious mental illness are more likely to be violent’ to come about. That’s simply not true. It’s been years since I had training in such matters but the stats didn’t suggest that then and they still don’t seem to (see above) Serious mental illness was a factor in this case. It sometimes is in other cases but there are thousands of people living with severe mental health issues that represent NO danger to the public. They don’t make the news.

Care in the community, whilst poorly funded, was done on ethical and efficacy grounds. Institutions weren’t working. People were kept in them too long. It was harder for them to recover.

There is a difference between an acute mental health ward (where we would be admitted if we needed such intense support) and psychiatric secure units (where you go if you represent a danger to others). I’m fuzzy on details as it’s been years since I worked on psychiatric wards but we really need to be careful NOT to further stigmatise mental health issues (we are all a couple of significant life events away from a serious MH diagnosis).

Most people fortunately aren’t violent. Some of those will have a diagnosable and serious mental health problem. Some people sadly are violent. Some of them will have a diagnosable and serious mental health problem. For some, their symptoms/state of mind will be, at least in part, responsible for the their violent actions.

Of course many people with serious mental illness are not violent ,but the fact is when people are psychotic they are not in reality ,psychosis is a very different illness to depression for example,ime some people with psychosis can become aggressive,because they are frightened ,or their delusional beliefs are telling them they are being harmed etc not everybody of course and it's certainly not an everyday happening ,but it happens enough that staff that are working in acute mental health,units ,secure units etc have training to deal with such incidents,our training was yearly

@Sparklfairy

I really don't think he should have got such a light sentence on the grounds of "diminished responsibility" due to his MH when he was refusing to take his medication.

At what point does personal responsibility come into it? If he'd taken his medication this might not have happened. He chose not to.

Such is the nature of mental illness with psychosis

Whilst this is an absolute tragedy, yabu OP for saying just "another selfish man". He obviously has severe mental health issues and is now being held in a psychiatric unit. As I understand it, and unless things have changed in the past few years, this time in the hospital will not count as part of his sentence.

Horrendous for the children and the rest of her family

@PastMyBestBeforeDate

Imagine the carnage if 50 year old women started shooting people who weren't paying attention to them.

😂😂😂 Shouldn't laugh. That poor woman. But the statement is so expressive and spot on.

Imagine the trauma of the 8-year-old children. This thing will blight their lives. He should go to prison for life just for that, in my opinion.

This, and the various other posts to the same effect, don’t stand up.

Peter sutcliffe spent most of his incarcerated life in a secure unit. So did the actual murderer of Rachel nickel, who was also believed to have carried out a string of rapes around south London. If you excuse the offender in the present case then you are letting the Yorkshire ripper and the green circle rapist off the hook too.

And the narrative that some posters are pushing that mental illness = danger to women is disturbing too

Have you actually read the story? He was suffering with mental illness at the time of the incident.
Very sad but he was ill at the time.

Personally I think anyone working with or using guns should have a yearly mental health assessment. Too many times stories come out where someone going through an extreme mental health crisis just picks up a gun and starts shooting.

" 'nobody was paying attention' to him."

"Hartshorne-Jones had multiple contacts with health professionals on 26 days out of the 42 days from March 16 to April 27 last year."

How many people get that level of support? And how the hell did all that contact not get fed through to the police gun licencing system, seeing as guns were hardly a sideline health professionals might not know about, but apparently were part of his work?

@Louise2022

Imagine the trauma of the 8-year-old children. This thing will blight their lives. He should go to prison for life just for that, in my opinion.

He is in a secure hospital ,they are no walk in the park ,when I was a student nurse I had a placement in a medium secure unit ,not even high security it was awful ,grim imposing building ,every door you had to unlock to go through and lock behind you ,patients couldn't just wander the grounds at will ,even to get escorted leave to go to shops within the hospital grounds ,they had to be assessed and it had to be granted by the home office ,and this was a medium secure unit not high secure ,which will have even tighter restrictions,he's in the right place because he has a mental illness,I doubt he will be discharged from there for a very long time if ever .

He got a life sentence of 16 years with minimum 8 to be served

@TeachesOfPeaches

He got a life sentence of 16 years with minimum 8 to be served

He won't just get out after either 8 or 16 years ,he's detained under the mental health,even after he's served his sentence he. can be kept in hospital indefinitely,for the rest of his life if necessary if he's still deemed to be a danger to society

This thread is misleading. It reads as though he killed her because he was plain selfish and she had got the temperature of his dinner wrong or something. However the root of the problem seems to have been that he had actually gone insane due to severe paranoia and obsession with Covid and he was so far gone that he thought she was putting his life at risk by dropping a tissue. In his own disturbed mind, he may have actually thought this was self defence/self preservation.

Not surprising because:

• the media at the time were saying to triple bag tissues, quarantine litter etc.
• proper help is so sparse for MH issues. With MH problems as severe as this, he needed to be an inpatient.
• the fact that someone so disturbed had access to guns

I agree the sentence is short, but the “sentence” should have been a psychiatric institution for life.

Have you actually read the story?

Yes I have.

He wasn't insane. The actual finding was manslaughter due to diminished responsibility - that's diminished responsibility not no responsibility. The diminished responsibility was due to depressive hypochondria, apparently with psychotic symptoms. But the psychiatric report found no evidence that he was legally insane at the time or incapable of having the intention to kill his wife.

The judge appears to have been very unimpressed with him.

"You thought your wife, the victim of this fatal shooting, was not paying enough attention to you and your needs," said the judge.

“She was carrying the entire burden of running that house whilst you took to bed."

The judge noted that Hartshorne-Jones had refused to take his anxiety medication. He lied on his gun licence renewal forms. He had multiple contacts with health professionals on 26 days out of the 42 days before the tragedy. This was not a man who was being ignored. This was a man who failed completely and totally to take responsibility for himself and his mental state so he didn't pose a danger to those around him.

The judge viewed assessing culpability as posing a 'complex challenge'. Hartshorne-Jones made no comment in police interviews. The evidence as to diminished responsibility was accepted by prosecutors and not tried in court. In particular: Judge Levett said that none of the three psychiatrists who had assessed Hartshorne-Jones appeared to have asked him: ‘Why did you shoot your wife?’ According to the psychiatrist, Hartshorne-Jones 'maintains largely that he doesn't know what happened' and 'reserts being asked about' the killing.

This raises questions about the quality of the evidence. It also doesn't really sound like a man overcome with remorse. Instead, he sounds like a thoroughly awful and self-centred man who is still refusing to take responsibility for what he has done.

However the root of the problem seems to have been that he had actually gone insane

No he hadn't. No evidence was found that he was insane or incapable of having an intention to kill.

Nobody said that mentally ill people can't have the intention to kill. It's about the reasoning. Like, you can kill somebody in self defence if you genuinely thought your life was in danger.

I don't care about this man. The fact he still refuses to engage with mental health support even after killing his wife as eliminated any sympathy or understanding I might have had.

The people I feel sorry for are his wife who lost her life and her two sons who found her body. I hope they have mental health support to come to terms with what has happened to them. I do have a question though, assuming this man recovers and is released in 8 years will he be allowed to take full custody of those boys? That's would be awful if so.

@startrek90

I don't care about this man. The fact he still refuses to engage with mental health support even after killing his wife as eliminated any sympathy or understanding I might have had.

The people I feel sorry for are his wife who lost her life and her two sons who found her body. I hope they have mental health support to come to terms with what has happened to them. I do have a question though, assuming this man recovers and is released in 8 years will he be allowed to take full custody of those boys? That's would be awful if so.

This is the nature of psychosis,many people with psychosis lack the capacity to understand that they are lll and they need to take medication ,some people have g to be forced to take medication in injectable forms using mental health law .