Akmal shaikh

[thehappyprince]

Just think it's desperately sad he is going to be executed within hours for a crime committed apparently due to psychotic beliefs from bipolar disorder. Wish there was some way for him to get clemency.

Anyone can 'pretend' to be mentally unwell in order to avoid prison. The reality of it is that very few actually get a MI diagnosis (an example- Ian Huntley).

There are 14 female beds on my ward. Everyone of them justified. There are without doubt more women with MH problems in prison, but no beds available. Very, very few offenders get a criminal detention under the Mental Health Act- only the very unwell/dangerous.

WannaBe does have point, not that I agree with her harsh view that stupidity deserves the death penalty.

Look at some of the high profile cases of British, mainly well off teenagers/young adults who have been caught smuggling. Their family, will launch a campaign to get them released, and it works. Some have received pardons. Some have been transferred to the UK to facilitate visiting family members.

And actually, the fact that he was homeless, points more towards him being mentally unstable and a very high proportion of homeless are, but wouldn't be so quick to judge that him being homeless is an indicator of a family who didn't care. They very well may have tried very hard to get him home, or to provide for him financially.

'So where were his family then? Perhaps if they'd been a bit more involved in the first place it would never have come to this.' - ach, wanneBe, being a close family member of someone with serious mental illness is one of the most draining, sad, frightening, exhausting and hopeless things you can imagine. Many, many MHS users lose contact with their family and friends over the years.

With a manic phase of Bipolar, people do the most bizarre things and believing to be a pop star etc is actually fairly common. I remember doing a home visit on a woman as a student nurse. She lived in one of the most deprived areas of the city, no furniture, nothing.
She had her suitcases packed in the hallway and told us that she was just about to go to the airport to catch a flight to Malaysia where she was a supporting act in the 'Asian leg' of a Celine Dion world tour.

She never had bus fare to town, never mind flight money to Kuala Lumpar- but what if she did? Im sure she would have gone there and possibly got herself into untold amount of trouble.

Sadly, again- family not very interested.

i'm so glad this isn't on the mental health topic with the spectacularly ignorant, nasty and revolting posts on here.

Some of you should be ashamed of your ignorance about mental health issues.

When my bipolar sil had a manic episode, she was convinced that she was going to New York to make it big as a singer, she was also convinced that she was going to Jamaica to meet Bob Marley.

She could have and to some extent was, talked in to ridiculously risky things that she would never have dreamt of doing at other times.

Also some of the crazy things that she thought whilst having an episode seem to be blurred with reality when she is stable.

"As has been said there is no proof this man was mentally ill, they used it as a defence."

Akhmal Shaikh was incarcerated for two years in China prior to his execution. During that time, a wealth of evidence was gathered to support his defence team's claim that he was mentally incapable at the time the crime was committed. The Chinese administration refused to look at any of it. There was plenty of proof. It was ignored.

had an experoence of this recently when a v good friend who has bi polar was convinced while in a state of 'mania' that she had a possible career as a model ahead.She is my age 44 and not model material in any way .It is a devastating illness

Do bi polar affect your ability to know right from wrong?

Talk of becoming a model or a singer is one thing.

Crossing the "line" and becoming a criminal is another and it's not as if drug smuggling is an activity that could easily be considered "questionable".

This is a serious question, I'm not being flippant about mental illness at all, I really don't know much about it.

Badgers- I believe that those who gave him the drugs led him to believe that he was destined to be a popstar in the far east.

If you bother to read the reports, you will find he didn't know he was carrying drugs. He thought he was going there on a funded trip because this gang were going to launch him as a pop star. So the issue of "knowing right from wrong" doesn't really arise.

Badgers, when you're suffering from psychosis or hallucinations, everything goes out the window. You might believe that the government is trying to kill you, that you're the Son of God and that transporting this package is your divine mission, that customs officials are aliens from outer space and that smuggling this package past them is the only way to save the world... ordinary notions of right/wrong, legal or illegal are absolutely nowhere.

There has been NO report/statement from his own Doctor/Psychiatrist to say he was bi polar...if there has I have missed it.

But as the saying goes when in rome....

I don't know much about mental illness, and as I said before I do believe in capital punishment.

The point here however is that this man was never given the opportunity to prove the extent to which his illness caused him to land in this position. It appears he has mental health issues, it appears that he was unwittingly lured into this situation. It is a tragedy and act of barbarianism that he was executed under these circumstances.

His case also brings to light the highly unethical and inhumane methods and procedures for execution that go on in China. Organs being used and sold. Bullets being sold back to families. Questionable trial procedures.

This is not justice, this is not how civilised people behave. I am very surprised by some of the comments on here, which I thought would be left to the confines of Daily Mail columns.

There shouldn't be any statement from his doc, his medical records are confidential.

I did hear his daughter on the radio a week or 2 ago, discussing his mental illness and saying that although she grew up with it, she thought of it as just normal behaviour for her dad because she didn't know enough about mental illness until she went away to university

Given the laws surrounding confidentiality in this country, its highly unlikely that his old Psychiatrist and/or mental health team are going to do a press release about his past mental health.

Also, given that if he was so unwell- why did they not take reasonable steps to ensure he was looked after appropriately??

I cant think why they would discuss his mental health to claify the situation.
Apparently the Chineses Authorities had reports about mental health but chose not to use them.

Slightly OT, but there's an article here by Deborah Orr about the pitiful state of acute mental health services, and how mental health professionals have to make horrible choices about which clients they are going to be able to offer in-patient treatment to. I don't actually think it's a great article but what she describes accords closely with my experience.

Can we put the death penalty issue to one side, but does anyone think it's appropriate for the accused to say they are mentally ill? This is what the Chinese court asked Mr. Shaikh essentially. Either way, it's a no win situation as if he says, 'yes, I am mentally ill -- here is the evidence...' he would be viewed as mentally aware of his behavior. If he said, 'no, I am not mentally ill...' then he could be viewed as being sane, and therefore not mentally ill.

But what about being mentally incapable? I would classify this still as mental illness as he wouldn't have been capable of understanding the ramifications of his actions.

Poor poor man.

But bipolar disorder is controllable - or am I missing the point??? Perhaps his family should have been involved sooner??

I don't think that his doctor should be obliged to make a statement about his mental health. But perhaps if he did it might do something about the divided opinions on this case.

Whenever someone is arrested in the far east with drugs, there is seemingly always a "mitigating" circumstance that means they couldn't possibly be held responsible. Either it was someone who was tricked/was too young/thought they had made a friend etc etc, and because of this people are often a bit scinical when a mitigating reason is offered in defence of the crime.

It would be all too easy to offer up mental health issues as a means to gain sympathy for a man who might well have known perfectly well what he was doing when he carried quarter of a million £s worth of drugs into a country that still has the death penalty as punishment for drug smuggling.

I'm not saying that's what has happened here, but the reality is that it's impossible to know for certain one way or the other when all you have to go on is media reporting, and campaigners who could well seek to use this reason to gain support for their already existing campaigns against the death penalty in China, and using a British man would lend more support to their cause..

AAArggghh, someone correct me if I'm wrong please. The issue here is not whether or not he was mentally ill/incapable. The issue is that he was never given the opportunity to prove it. Right?

well that's because that is who these drug traffickers pick on - the young, the defenceless, the mentally ill, the greedy. No-one is saying he shouldn't have been punished at all as obviously, he has committed a crime. But mental health issues are mitigating circumstances for the dealth penalty, even in China.

If anyone has listened to that song he recorded, you cannot tell me that man was not mentally ill. I know it's not a given but hell...

whiffle the issues are:

1. capital punishment

2. executing someone with a mental illness

3. someone who may have a mental illness not having a fair trial

4. the mental health of an accused not being investigated despite allegations of a mental illness.

"But bipolar disorder is controllable"

well sometimes - IF the patient has the right support & treatment and finds a drug that suits them / IF they take it continuously / IF Life stays hunk-dory permanently... These are very big "if"s sadly.

Some sufferer do find a way to manage it, but I think this man clearly wasn't one of them..

Bessie, exactly. Capital punishment aside, some on this thread insist that as he was caught, he is guilty....no mitigating circumstances should be considered.

For some the idea of capital punishment is wrong, and I respect that view. The way I see it however, in this case the rights and wrongs of the punishment don't even come into it as the fairness of the conviction itself is questionable. How can anyone justify putting a fellow human being (putting aside religion, ethnicity, sex; and I know that can influence some people's feelings as he may not seem like someone you would know/someone like you) to death without even attempting to understand how he came to commit the crime he is charged with?