Police had warned doctors mentally ill killer was plotting to mow down group of schoolchildren
Harley, 12, was run over by schizophrenic after multiple alarm bells were ignored in chilling echo of death of little Emily Jones
POLICE warned medical staff t hat a mentally ill loner was planning to run children over just weeks before he deliberately ploughed his car into a group of pupils, killing a 12-year-old boy, an investigation by The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Terence Glover killed Harley Watson and injured nine other children and an adult in a horrifying attack outside a school. Until now, the appalling incident in December 2019 has been reported as a ‘hit-and-run’, committed by a troublemaker who had been the subject of complaints to police for several years.
But we can reveal that Glover is a paranoid schizophrenic with a history of violence who refused to take medication or even acknowledge that he was ill. Shockingly, a leaked NHS report seen by the MoS shows that nine weeks before Glover killed Harley, a psychiatric nurse was told by police that he had been ‘talking about running children over’. But the chilling warning was overlooked, and hours later a psychiatric team decided Glover was not dangerous enough to be detained in a secure hospital.
The damning internal report by Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust also reveals: Almost two years before Harley’s killing, the NHS received an anonymous tip-off from someone claiming to be a Met Police officer who warned that Glover had threatened a ‘vehicle-borne attack’; After his arrest, Glover told a psychiatrist in prison that he had previously warned police that he was becoming angry and that ‘this is how kids are going to get run over’; Glover was fixated by delusional thoughts and believed children were harassing him; He was held in 2012 in a secure hospital after threatening a neighbour with a knife; Doctors assessed whether Glover should be detained on another five occasions in the seven years before Harley’s death, and each time decided not to.
The disturbing disclosures follow our report of how medics knew that a schizophrenic Albanian woman who cut a seven- year- old girl’s throat on Mother’s Day was a threat to children.
The appalling killing of Emily Jones in a park in Bolton happened less than four months after Glover killed Harley and injured ten others outside Debden Park High School in Loughton, Essex.
Harley’s devastated mother Jo Wood, 33, last night spoke of her anger and demanded urgent reform of the way dangerous mentally ill patients are supervised in the community. ‘They need to change something because if they don’t, just like Harley and Emily Jones, it will be moments until the next child or the next adult loses their life. And for what? It’s so unnecessary.’
Glover has pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Harley by diminished responsibility, and the at t empted murder of Raquel Jimeno, 23, and six boys and three girls aged between 12 and 16. He will be sentenced on Friday.
Harley had just left school on
December 2, 2019, and was walking along Willingale Road in Loughton with a group of friends when Glover, driving a silver Ford Ka, mounted the pavement behind them and ploughed into them. Harley suffered a fatal head injury.
The leaked report seen by the MoS reveals that Glover had taken cocaine before the incident.
The MoS has learned that Glover was well known in Loughton as a deeply troubled individual. He first came on to the radar of local mental health services in October 2012 after he was arrested for threatening a neighbour with a knife. He claimed that a neighbour had posted information about him on the internet, resulting in school children pointing at him.
Glover was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and detained on a psychiatric ward at Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow but was discharged five days later. In August 2015, he was arrested again after grabbing his ex-partner and slamming her head against a wall, causing bruising and swelling.
His mental health continued to deteriorate and by 2017 he was calling police on a weekly basis, falsely claiming that a neighbour was planting listening devices inside his house and monitoring him through the TV. An officer emailed Glover’s GP, warning that he was ‘becoming more paranoid’ and that the frequency of calls to police
were ‘quite concerning’. The GP attempted to refer Glover to a mental health team but the leaked report says it appears the referral was rejected.
On March 5, 2018, according to the report, someone claiming to be a Metropolitan Police officer called the NHS 111 to give a stark warning: Glover was ‘making threats of a vehicle- borne at t ack’. The i nformant explained that he had ‘previous knowledge of Glover’ but because Loughton is covered by Essex Police, he was ‘unable to organise help himself without an abuse of power’.
Tragically, this extraordinary bid to sound the alarm failed. The anonymous caller was put through to a clinician who requested a police welfare check on Glover, but it is not clear whether this took place.
The 111 call then ended because ‘there was no immediate threat to life’.
The last opportunity to stop Glover came on September 30, 2019. He had been arrested for breaching a public protection notice, and his mental state was assessed by a community psychiatric nurse in Harlow police station. In her subsequent report, the nurse wrote that ‘ police have said he has been found staring at neighbours’ children and talking about running children over’. She said another assessment should take place to decide whether he should be detained and warned: ‘I am concerned that there is a risk to others, particularly neighbours/children.’
Later that evening, two doctors and a ‘ mental health practitioner’ from Essex County Council arrived at the police station to carry out an assessment under the Mental
Health Act. They did not, however, talk to the nurse, who had by then gone home after submitting her alarming report. They later said ‘they could not recall’ whether they read her report before making their own assessment. They also claimed they tried to phone the nurse but the call was not answered. The nurse claimed not to be aware of a call.
At least one assessor knew that Glover had been ‘ using threatening behaviour towards neighbours’ children’ that day but after being told by the police custody sergeant that there had been no signs of him ‘acting strangely’, they decided there were no grounds to detain him.
Miss Wood believes Harley would still be alive if Glover had been detained that night. And it remains unclear why Glover targeted the children – Miss Wood and Harley did not know the killer, or live nearby.
Julian Hendy, of the charity Hundred Families, which campaigns for families affected by mental health homicides, said: ‘Yet again there were warnings about the danger someone posed to children which don’t seem to have got through.’
Essex Police said: ‘We had prior contact with Glover before the awful events of December 2, 2019, and made a number of referrals to mental health professionals following those interactions. Due to this prior police contact, we referred ourselves to the Independent Office for Police Conduct and have co-operated fully with their investigation. We await their findings and will act on any recommendations they make.’
The IOPC has finalised its report but it will not be published until after Harley’s inquest.
The Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust said: ‘Our findings will be shared with the coroner ahead of the inquest.’
Essex County Council said: ‘We are awaiting the outcome of the coroner’s inquest and will implement any recommendations.’