I will kill someone
Chilling vow of mental health patient who told NHS staff of violent rape fantasies – months before murdering a teacher
A MENTALLY ill man who murdered a teacher in a depraved sex attack told NHS staff ‘I will kill someone’ months earlier, it has emerged.
Carl Langdell had also spoken of his ‘violent fantasies’ of murdering and raping women.
The killer was jailed for life after strangling 23-year-old Katie Locke on their first date at a hotel over Christmas 2015.
During the trial, the 28-year-old, who met his victim on a dating website, was said to have sexually assaulted the body and taken pictures of it.
Yesterday, an independent review, commissioned by NHS England, revealed there had been ‘ systemic missed opportunities’ to assess the risk the graduate posed.
It highlighted a catalogue of events in the year leading up to the murder including attempted suicides, stints in mental health hospitals and boasts of a desire to kill. Just three weeks prior to the attack, Langdell had been given a ninemonth suspended sentence for threatening to kill NHS workers.
Despite this, the report revealed that a week or so before the killing a GP had judged him not to be a ‘present threat’.
NHS England regional medical director Dr David Levy said there had been ‘a gap at the heart of care planning and risk assessment’ that stopped various agencies working together.
Yet despite the failings, he said the review made clear they could not have predicted Langdell would go on to murder ‘with any certainty that would have made it possible to prevent’. Langdell, who grew up in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire,
‘Violent rape fantasies’
was said to be sporty and academic. But he suffered from borderline personality disorder, which the report said made him ‘highly volatile’.
It revealed a history of attempted suicides, weeks in mental health hospitals, and threats to kill others in the year leading up to the murder.
While being treated by Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership Trust in February 2015, he told NHS staff that he had ‘violent fantasies of murdering women and raping them’.
But when Langdell moved back to Hertfordshire this information was not shared.
Dr Asif Zia, of Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust, said: ‘Langdell actively held that information back from us. We need to learn from this.’
In March 2015 Langdell admitted he had thought about murdering and raping his girlfriend’s sister and was arrested after threatening to kill a nurse. And during a stint in a mental health hospital in September 2015, he was reported to police after threatening: ‘When I leave or am discharged, I will kill someone – document that.’
On December 2, he received a nine-month suspended prison sentence at Bristol Crown Court after pleading guilty to making two threats to kill.
In mid-December, he saw his GP who said his ‘mental state did not give cause for concern’ and did not judge him to be a threat. However, on December 23 he killed Miss Locke in a hotel room at the four- star Theobalds Park Hotel in Cheshunt before sexually assaulting the body and taking photos.
He had met Miss Locke – a Southampton University graduate who taught history at a secondary school in Hackney, East London – on dating website Plenty of Fish.
Langdell had falsely told Miss Locke, from Buckhurst Hill, Essex, that he was a lawyer who had set up his own law firm.
In 2016, he was sentenced to a minimum of 26 years in prison after pleading guilty to murder.
Dr Levy said: ‘Lack of information about his previous care was considered to have been one of the critical factors hindering appropriate risk assessment and management.’