Monday 1 October 2007

A Sad First Anniversary

Dear All,

The first anniversary of my mum's death will come about tonight (1st/2nd October) at just after midnight; a year which has been marked with grief and a fight for justice for my family and which is still a long way from being finished.

Sadly in the year since my mother's death there have been the deaths of numerous others in our mental hospitals up and down the country and, indeed around the world. 'Deaths in custody' as they are euphemistically termed reached 600 in the year to April 2007: these included deaths in prisons, police cells and mental hospitals, the latter by far accounting for the vast majority of these deaths. Please have a look at the Forum for Preventing Deaths in Custody's website for more information.

Whilst suicide and 'death by natural causes' are the most frequent pronouncements by those who investigate the matters, the experience of my mother's death and the ensuing investigation has shown the depressing lack of quality of these investigations in the first place. An investigation which is focused merely on the extremely limited medical evidence without any anxious questioning of the imprisoning environment is, surely, a failure of justice but, more importantly, a failure of morality.

A judiciary which is unwilling to hold the elements of our state to account - especially where the death of an individual in their 'care' or 'custody' - is, to borrow a phrase, unfit for purpose.

It is with this saddening reality that my family continue to take a campaigning approach after my mother died in the first few minutes of 2nd October 2006, choking on her vomit, surrounded by the cacophony of state-negligence: a sleeping security guard, the lack of proper medical training of nurses, the lack of proper care, dignity or humanity.

As we have repeatedly said before, my mother's death raises broader questions about mental health in our society. Why, the question can be asked, is it that we are so quick to incarcerate people with so-called 'mental illness' - both for their own protection and that of society - and then submit them to poor, callous treatment in an area of the NHS which hasn't seen the boom of its medical brothers and sisters? Why do we still see so many people with mental illness not just in our mental hospitals but also in our prisons and trudging their way through our criminal justice system? Why can't we value the lives of our fellow human beings?

'Mental illness' is still a Cinderella aspect of our society, shunned and hidden, feared and loathed, misunderstood and oppressed. This dehumanisation - culminating in the death of the 'mentally ill patient' in the state's arms - is a truly wretched state of affairs. The question then is why do so few people seem to care? And why can't so many people see that it could be them that suffers a similar fate to my mother?

But as our solicitors prepare to lodge papers - the wheels of justice turn extremely slowly - at the High Court in our challenge of the discreditable conduct of Dr. Andrew Reid, we are remembering the reason for our struggle once more. The laughter, humanity and decency of our mother made her an important human being - not a person with mental illness. It is in her memory - and with those in mind who have, are and will suffer the tragedies of our present system - that we will continue this fight for justice, even though the odds are definitely against us.

Thank you all for your kind thoughts and words over the last year.