Revealed: Family warnings over psychotic killers ‘ignored by NHS’
As author dies after shooting by neighbour whose father tried to have him sectioned...
THE father of a paranoid schizophrenic who gunned down and killed his neighbour had desperately tried to get his son sectioned a week before the attack.
James Nash, 42, a children’s author, was shot in the head by Alex Sartain with a handmade gun outside his thatched cottage in Upper Enham, Hampshire on Wednesday. He died on Friday night.
Sartain, who died in a crash after fleeing the scene by motorbike, suffered from paranoia and reportedly feared his victim was a Government spy.
His Facebook page reveals a longstanding interest in Nazi Germany and included ‘likes’ of Hitler.
The appalling case has reignited fears over the number of killings by people with severe mental health problems.
Yesterday The Mail on Sunday unearthed an NHS report marked ‘official-sensitive’ which reveals how the number of suspected or actual killings by mental health patients in England jumped from 93 in 2016/17 to 121 in 2017/18. Last year the total stood at 111.
The report, quietly published online last month, listed a string of failings identified by 27 investigations into killings committed in 2018/19 and warned ‘there is a risk future deaths will not be reduced due to ineffective learning’.
Problems i dentified i ncluded ‘access issues to acute inpatient wards’ and a ‘lack of access to crisis i ntervention and planning, including escalation arrangements’. Crucially, the report also highlighted how ‘ families’ concerns [were] not being acted on in care planning/ risk assessments’.
It comes as a close friend of the Sartain family told how the 34-yearold mechanic had been sectioned four times and that his father John had been trying to get him sectioned again a week before the attack.
‘Alex was completely failed,’ Tony Bennett, 55, told The Mail on Sunday. ‘Alex was a paranoid schizophrenic – he had been diagnosed.
‘His dad 100 per cent feels let down. Just last week John tried to get him into the healthcare authorities. He told me that he called them up and tried to get them to deal with him but they didn’t want to.
‘ Alex would be talking to you one minute fine and the next he’d be staring at you like he wanted to cut your head off. He could change in a second.
‘It’s a double tragedy because not onl y di d James di e but Alex has been let down. If they had taken him in this would have never happened.’
Mr Bennett said Sartain – who had convictions for assault and drugdriving – started having delusions after he was released from HMP Winchester about four years ago.
He added: “He was last sectioned around Christmas time – he was in there for about eight weeks. He’s been sectioned four times in the past two or three years.
‘He’s a tearaway but not a violent character – he’s never been violent in his life.
‘I would say he was on heroin for about ten years. He had a girlfriend a long time ago but really heroin was his girlfriend.
‘John is heartbroken. He has lost his son, and he didn’t want him to go out and kill anybody.’
Julian Hendy, of the charity Hundred Families, which campaigns for families affected by mental health murders, said: ‘We have often seen families are raising concerns about somebody’s deterioration and they are not being listened to.
‘The family is a very good source of information about a patient’s mental health on a day-to-day basis. But often we see that NHS staff fail to engage with families properly or effectively.’
Of the report into homicides committed by mental health patients, NHS England said: ‘ The NHS is committed to learning from the findings of all independent investigations and it is precisely why this annual report has been published and the recommendations will be examined and taken forward.’