Drug clue to another massacre

ONCE again, a clearly unhinged crime is being treated as if it is a political action. Plymouth mass-killer Jake Davison could not have expected to achieve anything for any cause by these ghastly crimes.

I agree his record makes it absurd that he should have been allowed to own a gun of any kind. But why was he so crazy? It seems very possible that, as a bodybuilder, he used steroids, whose use is associated with several rampage killings.

He may also have been prescribed SSRI antidepressants, likewise associated with such acts, and I would be amazed if he was not a user of marijuana, again associated with many violent crimes.

If there is a causal connection between such drugs and violence, we need to know, and to act on it. Yet nobody is interested. When I asked Devon and Cornwall Police if they had any information on his drug use, they refused to discuss the matter. This is the invariable response of police forces in such cases. It shouldn’t be.