More may die if dangerous patients are free to stroll our streets

IT IS one of the most unbearable tragedies of all – when a severely mentally ill person, at large in the community, turns on and kills another human being.

Yet it happens, again and again. Precise figures are hard to find because of the cautious and sometimes misleading way in which they are compiled. The independent charity Hundred Families calculates that there were 1,866 mental-health-related killings in the UK between 1993 and 2021. And the authorities, who are ultimately responsible for keeping us safe from harm, seem oddly reluctant to act. They know there is a problem.

A special body, originally called the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness, was set up in 1996 to study it. Quite reasonably, campaigners for better treatment of the mentally ill are concerned in case such crimes are exaggerated and this leads to discrimination and prejudice.

But there is a balancing fear, that if the problem is not addressed and recognised, more people will die needlessly. And there is another grave worry, that, like our prisons, secure facilities at mental hospitals are now so overloaded that there is constant pressure to release patients. The Mail on Sunday today reports on the case of a severely ill man who admitted manslaughter after an especially brutal killing, and was initially sent to a secure mental hospital. The judge at his trial said: ‘He may never be released and if he is, it will be under the most stringent of conditions.’

Yet now he has been seen strolling in and out of an open unit in a major city, under conditions which appear to be anything but stringent. This is not one of the glamorous areas of government, but it is vitally important, and politicians of all parties should co-operate to improve the safety of us all.