Top lawyer’s widow sues psychiatrist over suicide
THE widow of a top lawyer who killed himself is suing for £5million, saying she “trusted he was in a safe place” with psychiatric experts who “knew what they were doing”.
John Jones, who represented Wiki-Leaks founder Julian Assange and also worked alongside actor George Clooney’s lawyer wife Amal, died after walking out of North London’s Nightingale Hospital, where he was being treated for acute depression in April 2016.
Mr Jones, who was head of international law at the acclaimed Doughty Street barristers’ chambers, died after stepping in front of a train at West Hampstead station.
The 48-year-old had been admitted to the exclusive hospital on March 22 under the care of eminent psychiatrist Dr Stephen Pereira, having described himself as being locked in a “downward spiral”.
His family reported that Mr Jones was in a “terrible place” and “a danger to himself”, and there were problems with getting his medication right.
Dr Pereira was Mr Jones’s treating psychiatrist at the time and arranged for his admission to the Nightingale, but lawyers for the family claim he failed to set up an “effective and adequate care plan”.
Widow Misa Zgonec-Rozej, 47, is suing her husband’s psychiatrist for alleged negligence, with her lawyers telling the High Court: “He was not ‘untreatable’ and he was not inevitably doomed to take his own life. He was provided with no effective treatment, no effective therapy and no effective management.” Lawyers for Dr Pereira claim a care regime was put in place but that Mr Jones did not respond well, being reluctant to take his medication or engage in group therapy. The case continues.