One person a week is killed by mental health patient exposing pressure on trusts
Probe found killings or suspected killings by mental health patients have increased by 92 per cent since 2009
A TOTAL of 423 people have been killed by mental health patients in the last seven years, an investigation found.
The toll of more than one death per week has been blamed on increased referrals overwhelming mental health trusts.
But officials insist the rate has been falling for decades and that patients are ten times more likely to be a victim of crime than the average person.
A probe by charity Hundred Families and ITV Tonight found 37 killings or suspected killings by mental health patients in 2009. That rose by 92 per cent to 71 last year.
Paul Farmer, chief executive of Mind, said many were “preventable”. He added: “The key element is listening to families and often those family concerns are not necessarily heard.”
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Paranoid schizophrenic Matthew Daley, 35, was sent to a secure hospital for life for stabbing retired solicitor Donald Lock, 79, to death last July near Worthing, West Sussex.
Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust has since launched a review into ten more killings involving its patients since 2008.
Other high-profile deaths include Eleftheria Demetriou, 79, who was stabbed 40 times by neighbour Hakim Abdillahi, 41, in Wood Green, North London, in August 2012.
And Beata Slomiana, 33, who was suffocated by boyfriend Asaad Abdel-All, 37, in nearby Finchley in 2011.
Professor Sir Simon Wessely, President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said: “This is an area where there’s been progressive improvements over the years. But it still happens and when it happens it’s just awful.”
Care or Crime? airs tonight at 7.30pm.
