Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Nilsen rang at all hours ..and a patient stabbed me with a kebab skewer
Disturbing and challenging times in role as a forensic psychiatrist
With a piercing gaze that would leave some people in tears, Connie Mortensen said to a psychiatrist: “Well, don’t you look pleased with yourself ?”
Connie’s flaking skin was mottled with bruises and scars. She had tufts of hair missing and a Terminator-esque bloodshot eye.
The opening scenes of TV miniseries Too Close were gripping.
Emily Watson’s character – forensic psychiatrist Dr Emma Robertson – sat down across the table to assess Connie, a woman charged with attempted murder after driving herself and two children off a bridge.
Viewers saw the gripping conclusion of the show last night, but how close is it to real life?
For the past 25 years, leading forensic psychologist Kerry Daynes has worked in maximum security prisons, secure hospitals, courts and police stations.
She has met notorious killers such as Peter Sutcliffe and Ian Brady but has stayed tight-lipped about the encounters.
In the 1990s she carried out research at Wakefield Prison, known as Monster Mansion due to its infamous inmates.
She later caught the attention of a former inmate – serial killer Dennis Nilsen.
Kerry said: “He took it upon himself to find a number for my private practice and telephoned me at all sorts of strange times.
“These calls obviously weren’t something I invited.
You have to set strict boundaries. But he was such a narcissist, he wasn’t interested in me personally.” She screens all calls to her home number after a fan of her work stalked her for six years.
Kerry, 47, believes the man even killed her pet cat and was responsible for leaving the name “Jill Dando” on her fence.
It was a threat to murder her on her doorstep – the fate that befell Crimewatch host Jill in 1999.
Kerry was stabbed with a kebab skewer by one patient – an ordeal she writes about in her next book, which is due out in August.
He dropped his glass eyeball into my soup KERRY DAYNES ON AN ENCOUNTER WITH SADIST
The scar on her stomach is a daily reminder of the dangerous path she treads. Yet, remarkably, she insists she feels safe in her day-to-day life.
Kerry said: “I have colleagues and safety measures all around me.
“When I was stabbed, the young man didn’t have a history of violence – he was an arsonist. He had been released from a secure unit so there wasn’t the same level of security where I met him.
“There was nothing in his history to suggest what was about to happen. He targeted me simply because I was the least physically threatening person there that day.
“I ended up with a two-inch scar... but that isn’t a typical day.”
Some prisoners, like one elderly man with a history of sadism, would do anything to get a reaction. Kerry said: “He dropped his glass eyeball into my tomato soup while we were talking. It was just so that he could enjoy my shocked reaction and I definitely gave him what he wanted that day.
“But I’m fairly stoic now, or at least can look deadpan, when inside I’m wrestling my own automatic reactions.”
Connie, played by Denise Gough, got under the psychiatrist’s skin in Too Close on ITV.
Kerry has revealed that it also happened to her – but she could not show it.
“I met a woman who suffocated her baby in a particular way that was horrific,” Kerry said. “I nearly blew our interview assessment because I felt so angry about what she had done. “But part and parcel
of being a forensic psychologist is over-riding your automatic emotional responses to get the best out of your patient.
“You don’t talk to neighbours or friends about your day. You keep work and personal separate.”
Working on her first homicide case for the Crown Prosecution Service she met a killer called Alison who had been abused by her husband for many years.
Kerry had been hired to determine Alison’s mental state at the time she bludgeoned her husband
to death and tried to cut him in half. Kerry said: “Alison vomited on my foot in the middle of our assessment session because she was that traumatised by what she had done to her abusive partner...
“Occasionally I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about work. But don’t we all?”
■ The Dark Side of the Mind: True Stories From My Life as a Forensic Psychologist is out now. Visit www. kerrydaynes.online for details.