Mother slates GPS over tragic son’s treatment

‘He genuinely wanted help, but the doctor didn’t seem to know what to do’

The grieving mother of a young dad found hanged in woodland has condemned GPS, telling them: “You must know if you hand out tablets it’s for a reason”.

Rickylee Bradford had confessed to an earlier suicide attempt and “cried like a baby” with his head in his mother’s lap, an emotionally charged inquest heard.

But trips to his doctor had proved fruitless, said mum Tina Chapman, and the antidepressants he was prescribed caused terrible side-effects.

She has accused GPS of failing to refer her 22-year-old son to a mental health team after they took him off his tablets.

Months later he was found hanged from a tree near his home in Hersden.

Rickylee, a father-of-one with a second baby due, had been desperate to overcome his demons and better himself, Mrs Chapman told a coroner.

Racked with guilt after occasional cocaine binges, Rickylee was prone to self-harming and had told his mother he had heard voices in his head.

In heart-rending testimony, Mrs Chapman fought back tears as she suggested her son’s GPS could have done more to help him.

“I feel he should have been referred to a mental health team,” she said.

“He genuinely wanted help, but the doctor didn’t seem to know what to do or who to refer him to.

“I just wish somebody could have helped. He told me he had put a rope around his neck but it had snapped. Then he cried like a baby. He was hearing voices.”

Margate Coroner’s Court heard how Rickylee, a scaffolder living in St Albans Road, had been due to sit an exam for his job on August 15 last year.

He failed to attend and was found hanging in a wooded area off a field in Hersden by dog walkers later that afternoon.

Ex-girlfriend Chloe Gibson told the court that she had been in a relationship with Rickylee for about four years.

He was father of their daughter and unborn baby.

The couple “had our arguments like anyone else”, said Miss Gibson, but Rickylee would occasionally binge on cocaine then feel enormously guilty.

“He just kept going back to it,” she said. “Every time he was getting on well he would end up messing up by taking it.

Hersden GP Dr Qaiser Mangi said Rickylee had visited the surgery with his mother earlier last year.

The pair had had an appointment with Dr Mangi’s wife, also a doctor, who had prescribed anti-depressants.

In March last year he developed a terrible rash and was admitted to QEQM Hospital in Margate for three days.

Dr Mangi said Rickylee had made subsequent visits and the anti- depressant treatment was stopped due to the side-effects.

Rickylee’s mother questioned the doctor at the hearing, asking him why the surgery had not sought follow-up appointments to address her son’s state of mind.

“You don’t just give out tablets. You must know if you hand out tablets it’s for a reason,” she said.

“So then after he became so ill from the anti-depressants you wait for him to come back? Is that your job done?”

Dr Mangi told the court he had a good relationship with Rickylee, making appointments on a number of occasions.

The surgery had expected him to make further appointments of his own volition.

“My thinking was he would come back to see us,” said Dr Mangi. “We didn’t actively chase him.

“The tablets were a risky strategy. They could have caused bad damage to him.”

Assistant coroner James Dillon recorded a verdict of suicide.

Rickylee Bradford