Mentally-ill woman stabs another to death
Discussion
As someone who works in the community monitoring people with severe and enduring mental health diagnoses and mostly co morbid drug and alcohol issues with accompanying forensic history then I feel reasonably well qualified to comment on this.
Looking at the above article there were mistakes made on both sides, and without looking at the documentation in full it's not helpful making a comment.
In my own experience though there are good and bad ( helpful and unhelpful) police officers when it comes to dealing with mental health patients. Equally though there are good and bad mental health workers many of whom have no real idea of the relevant risk history of their patients and are unfit to carry out their duties.
It's not unheard of for the police to drop suicidal patients off in A&E and leave them there to leave of their own accord. The argument being the patient was in a place of safety, in spite of this safety being temporary at very best, it's also not unheard of for the NHS to manage its staff so poorly that some are little better than chair warmers and its understandable that the old bill get fecked off with it
I for one have been glad to have some assistance from the bib particularly during the most recent revocation of one of my patients CTOs during which there were significant risks to myself and the public due to weapons.
They do cock it up sometimes, so do we.
No one is perfect
If there are speeeling and grimmer issues then accept my humble apologies. Typing on an iPhone isn't easy when it gets past a paragraph
Looking at the above article there were mistakes made on both sides, and without looking at the documentation in full it's not helpful making a comment.
In my own experience though there are good and bad ( helpful and unhelpful) police officers when it comes to dealing with mental health patients. Equally though there are good and bad mental health workers many of whom have no real idea of the relevant risk history of their patients and are unfit to carry out their duties.
It's not unheard of for the police to drop suicidal patients off in A&E and leave them there to leave of their own accord. The argument being the patient was in a place of safety, in spite of this safety being temporary at very best, it's also not unheard of for the NHS to manage its staff so poorly that some are little better than chair warmers and its understandable that the old bill get fecked off with it
I for one have been glad to have some assistance from the bib particularly during the most recent revocation of one of my patients CTOs during which there were significant risks to myself and the public due to weapons.
They do cock it up sometimes, so do we.
No one is perfect
If there are speeeling and grimmer issues then accept my humble apologies. Typing on an iPhone isn't easy when it gets past a paragraph
XCP said:
If she was in a hospital ( 'a place of safety'), the police had no power under S136 to remove her. The police cannot drag mentally ill people around from one place of safety to another ( a cell, perhaps).
Wrongs136(3) allows movement between places of safety - most humanely, to remove a person from a police station to hospital or occasionally someone very disturbed from A&E to custody.
s136 allows the police to detain person in A&E (which is both a public place(s.136) and a place of safety (s.135)) until the mental health team is assembled to make assessment under MHA thus allowing detention to hospital
She was phoning BiB from A&E detailing her risk history and fears - the hospital were unaware of this.
oddman said:
Wrong
s136(3) allows movement between places of safety - most humanely, to remove a person from a police station to hospital or occasionally someone very disturbed from A&E to custody.
s136 allows the police to detain person in A&E (which is both a public place(s.136) and a place of safety (s.135)) until the mental health team is assembled to make assessment under MHA thus allowing detention to hospital
She was phoning BiB from A&E detailing her risk history and fears - the hospital were unaware of this.
Not quite that simple though. Police custody is a place of safety only in exceptional circumstances.s136(3) allows movement between places of safety - most humanely, to remove a person from a police station to hospital or occasionally someone very disturbed from A&E to custody.
s136 allows the police to detain person in A&E (which is both a public place(s.136) and a place of safety (s.135)) until the mental health team is assembled to make assessment under MHA thus allowing detention to hospital
She was phoning BiB from A&E detailing her risk history and fears - the hospital were unaware of this.
The hospital A&E were aware of what she was saying to the police - they told the police quite specifically they did not need officers to attend because their own security had it in hand. In any case she was seen by a mental health doctor within less than five minutes of telling the police she felt like she was going to kill someone, and the doctor was fully aware of her history, including the manslaughter.
All the headlines about police failing to PNC check Edgington or whether or not they sectioned her is irrelevant and would have made absolutely no difference to the outcome. The decision not to section her was made by doctors in the mental health unit (which is a far as the police could have taken her in any case) and the same doctors were aware of her mental health history including the manslaughter. The fact the police missed this "vital" information is also largely irrelevant since the medical experts who actually made the decision not to section her knew about the manslaughter history anyway.
What's the comeback on the medical staff who a) didn't section her and b) let her wander out? Not much I'll wager.
MarshPhantom said:
The police are here to keep people safe.
The Police are here to be society's whipping boys and take the blame for everybody else's failures. And just for clarification:
Nicola Edgington remained at that hospital until AFTER she was assessed by mental health services who offered her admission to hospital and walked her over to the mental health ward with a security guard. Had the police detained her under s136 MHA and even if they had then remained involved in the assessment process to ensure she continued to be detained, they would have disengaged as soon as Nicola was safely escorted onto the ward.
She was taken from A&E at 06:25am on the 10 minute walk. She left the mental health ward at 07:19am. The mental health team failed (again)
Edited by Elroy Blue on Tuesday 5th March 08:25
peterperkins said:
Sparta VAG said:
Police custody is a place of safety only in exceptional circumstances.
That's a laugh, not in my area it's not! 
neither a custody suite ( because of the environment and other 'customers') nor a General Hospital Emergency Department ( for security and supervision reasons ) is a 'place of safety .
there should be specific crisis / 136 suites provided by the mental health trust...
Elroy Blue said:
The Police are here to be society's whipping boys and take the blame for everybody else's failures.
And just for clarification:
Nicola Edgington remained at that hospital until AFTER she was assessed by mental health services who offered her admission to hospital and walked her over to the mental health ward with a security guard. Had the police detained her under s136 MHA and even if they had then remained involved in the assessment process to ensure she continued to be detained, they would have disengaged as soon as Nicola was safely escorted onto the ward.
She was taken from A&E at 06:25am on the 10 minute walk. She left the mental health ward at 07:19am. The mental health team failed (again)
These are the circumstances I was referring to earlier.And just for clarification:
Nicola Edgington remained at that hospital until AFTER she was assessed by mental health services who offered her admission to hospital and walked her over to the mental health ward with a security guard. Had the police detained her under s136 MHA and even if they had then remained involved in the assessment process to ensure she continued to be detained, they would have disengaged as soon as Nicola was safely escorted onto the ward.
She was taken from A&E at 06:25am on the 10 minute walk. She left the mental health ward at 07:19am. The mental health team failed (again)
Edited by Elroy Blue on Tuesday 5th March 08:25
Listening to a discussion on the radio about this, I get the impression that the police and health authorities are both going to be able to prove they followed the correct processes and procedures.
I don’t think ill try it but what would normally happen if I dialled 999 and said I was going to kill someone? Even if they didn’t know I had done it before.
I don’t think ill try it but what would normally happen if I dialled 999 and said I was going to kill someone? Even if they didn’t know I had done it before.
Bad and mad falls between both services. I have personally seen this a number of times. It shouldn't happen but it does.
The ability to remove someones rights when they threaten to do something illegal is a very grey area in the uk.
Its all very clear what to do when they have comitted the act, but not very clear when they are threatening. Its very clear what to do if they are hallucinating, delusional, but not so clear if they act 'bad' but not so 'mad'.
The problem is whether the lady is mentally ill, or a criminal.
My own personal feeling it that the polices job doesn't stop at removing this person to a place of safety. They should stay there at the place of safety, and say 'hey doc' this person is comitting an offence by threatening to chop someones head off. Is she mad or bad?.
If the doc says she is isn't mad, as seems to be the case here, the police should grab her, and dump her in a cell like any other criminal.
If the doc says she is mad, the doc should bloody arrange admission to a mental health unit.
The break down of communication here is that the police think its the docs job and the doc thinks its the polices job. And they don't seem to have had a decent face to face conversation between them to sort it out.
The ability to remove someones rights when they threaten to do something illegal is a very grey area in the uk.
Its all very clear what to do when they have comitted the act, but not very clear when they are threatening. Its very clear what to do if they are hallucinating, delusional, but not so clear if they act 'bad' but not so 'mad'.
The problem is whether the lady is mentally ill, or a criminal.
My own personal feeling it that the polices job doesn't stop at removing this person to a place of safety. They should stay there at the place of safety, and say 'hey doc' this person is comitting an offence by threatening to chop someones head off. Is she mad or bad?.
If the doc says she is isn't mad, as seems to be the case here, the police should grab her, and dump her in a cell like any other criminal.
If the doc says she is mad, the doc should bloody arrange admission to a mental health unit.
The break down of communication here is that the police think its the docs job and the doc thinks its the polices job. And they don't seem to have had a decent face to face conversation between them to sort it out.
julian64 said:
Bad and mad falls between both services. I have personally seen this a number of times. It shouldn't happen but it does.
The ability to remove someones rights when they threaten to do something illegal is a very grey area in the uk.
Its all very clear what to do when they have comitted the act, but not very clear when they are threatening. Its very clear what to do if they are hallucinating, delusional, but not so clear if they act 'bad' but not so 'mad'.
The problem is whether the lady is mentally ill, or a criminal.
My own personal feeling it that the polices job doesn't stop at removing this person to a place of safety. They should stay there at the place of safety, and say 'hey doc' this person is comitting an offence by threatening to chop someones head off. Is she mad or bad?.
If the doc says she is isn't mad, as seems to be the case here, the police should grab her, and dump her in a cell like any other criminal.
If the doc says she is mad, the doc should bloody arrange admission to a mental health unit.
The break down of communication here is that the police think its the docs job and the doc thinks its the polices job. And they don't seem to have had a decent face to face conversation between them to sort it out.
No. The Police work within the law. The Mental Health teams just don't work.The ability to remove someones rights when they threaten to do something illegal is a very grey area in the uk.
Its all very clear what to do when they have comitted the act, but not very clear when they are threatening. Its very clear what to do if they are hallucinating, delusional, but not so clear if they act 'bad' but not so 'mad'.
The problem is whether the lady is mentally ill, or a criminal.
My own personal feeling it that the polices job doesn't stop at removing this person to a place of safety. They should stay there at the place of safety, and say 'hey doc' this person is comitting an offence by threatening to chop someones head off. Is she mad or bad?.
If the doc says she is isn't mad, as seems to be the case here, the police should grab her, and dump her in a cell like any other criminal.
If the doc says she is mad, the doc should bloody arrange admission to a mental health unit.
The break down of communication here is that the police think its the docs job and the doc thinks its the polices job. And they don't seem to have had a decent face to face conversation between them to sort it out.
It is the norm for mental health teams to say a person isn't 'mad', right after they've done something that warranted them being put before the mental health team. Of course, when they then go on to do something 'mad', it's the Police's fault.
I'm afraid the general public have no idea just how much time Police spend dealing with mental health issues and just how often the NHS wash their hands of the problem.
Elroy Blue said:
The Police are here to be society's whipping boys and take the blame for everybody else's failures.
And just for clarification:
Nicola Edgington remained at that hospital until AFTER she was assessed by mental health services who offered her admission to hospital and walked her over to the mental health ward with a security guard. Had the police detained her under s136 MHA and even if they had then remained involved in the assessment process to ensure she continued to be detained, they would have disengaged as soon as Nicola was safely escorted onto the ward.
She was taken from A&E at 06:25am on the 10 minute walk. She left the mental health ward at 07:19am. The mental health team failed (again)
How do you just leave a secure unit?And just for clarification:
Nicola Edgington remained at that hospital until AFTER she was assessed by mental health services who offered her admission to hospital and walked her over to the mental health ward with a security guard. Had the police detained her under s136 MHA and even if they had then remained involved in the assessment process to ensure she continued to be detained, they would have disengaged as soon as Nicola was safely escorted onto the ward.
She was taken from A&E at 06:25am on the 10 minute walk. She left the mental health ward at 07:19am. The mental health team failed (again)
Edited by Elroy Blue on Tuesday 5th March 08:25
Surely all the doors have key pads to gain access? Even care homes for people who have severe learning difficulties have key pads.
Of course a lot of this depends on whether her condition is 'treatable' or not. If she has an untreatable personality disorder the health service will deny responsibility and suggest that we wait until she has committed a criminal act and put her before a court.
Thankfully not all such acts involve a partial beheading.
Thankfully not all such acts involve a partial beheading.
egor110 said:
How do you just leave a secure unit?
Surely all the doors have key pads to gain access? Even care homes for people who have severe learning difficulties have key pads.
By climbing the perimeter fence, kicking the doors though,convincing a temp cleaner etc that you are an AMHP.... Etc etc Surely all the doors have key pads to gain access? Even care homes for people who have severe learning difficulties have key pads.
These are just a few ways to leave a secure unit....
Gene Simmons said:
By climbing the perimeter fence, kicking the doors though,convincing a temp cleaner etc that you are an AMHP.... Etc etc
These are just a few ways to leave a secure unit....
You forgot the bit where the staff watch you walk out (then immediately report you 'missing' to the Police. It's their problem then)These are just a few ways to leave a secure unit....
I didn't realise properly mentally ill people could be convicted of crimes while in a delusional state. It hardly seems humane to treat a crazy woman as a murderer by putting her in prison for life.
Perhaps Bedlam will re-open to the paying public wanting to laugh at the mentals (instead of watching them on X-Factor).
Perhaps Bedlam will re-open to the paying public wanting to laugh at the mentals (instead of watching them on X-Factor).
Elroy Blue said:
No. The Police work within the law. The Mental Health teams just don't work.
It is the norm for mental health teams to say a person isn't 'mad', right after they've done something that warranted them being put before the mental health team. Of course, when they then go on to do something 'mad', it's the Police's fault.
I'm afraid the general public have no idea just how much time Police spend dealing with mental health issues and just how often the NHS wash their hands of the problem.
I'm afraid its a lack of understanding. Ask yourself why people who randomly murder are put in jail rather than a mental institution.It is the norm for mental health teams to say a person isn't 'mad', right after they've done something that warranted them being put before the mental health team. Of course, when they then go on to do something 'mad', it's the Police's fault.
I'm afraid the general public have no idea just how much time Police spend dealing with mental health issues and just how often the NHS wash their hands of the problem.
Take it one step at a time. Say you come across someone on the street who is threatening violence and you believe them. What is it that you do as a plod?
On what grounds do you make the decision to take them to a place of safety rather than just sticking them in the cells?
Fantic SuperT said:
I didn't realise properly mentally ill people could be convicted of crimes while in a delusional state. It hardly seems humane to treat a crazy woman as a murderer by putting her in prison for life.
Perhaps Bedlam will re-open to the paying public wanting to laugh at the mentals (instead of watching them on X-Factor).
Agreed, life in prison for someone who is mentally ill seems wrong and harsh. I thought people pleaded insanity to get themselves a lighter sentence.Perhaps Bedlam will re-open to the paying public wanting to laugh at the mentals (instead of watching them on X-Factor).
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