After failure at the High Court last week, my family's lawyers are today lodging an application at the Court of Appeal. Though we were disappointed with last week's ruling, our legal team have worked hard over the last few days to build a strong case for an appeal.
A key point of the appeal is that my mother's death should automatically get the same form of investigation as a person who was in prison at the time of death. The judge at the High Court did not consider this point and, although the law is not clear in this area, we have a strong argument that this should be the case. We are also strongly arguing that the state was directly involved in my mother's death and therefore should have to answer for its actions under the European Convention on Human Rights.
Of course, we wouldn't be able to continue this case without having public funding and, in a further lift for our family last week, legal aid was granted on Friday within a few hours to allow us to make the appeal. Our advocate's advice is that the case is strong and the public interest is significant. As my family prepare to mark the second anniversary of my mother's death on 2nd October, we will continue to argue that people who die in mental health detention are just as important as anyone else.
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2 comments:
Good luck with the campaign and we will put a link on our page and encourage our supporters to support your campaign as well. You're right though deaths in these institutions need to be tracked and questions asked. Keep on keeping on!
For Steven and the family of Sandra Allen, I wish you all success in your campaign - I have been deeply touched by this story since coming across your blog.
These kind of things must happen quite often in our failing health and social care system - we just don't often hear about them. How many mentally ill, elderly and other vulnerable members of our society go through similar experiences? If they have no-one strong enough to stand up for them they are extremely vulnerable.
I am very sorry your mother died like this and you are left now to try to make something good from something so dreadful. As if the pain and grief of your loss was not enough, that you should now have to endure this battle for justice is a very sad reflection on our society indeed.
May human decency and common sense prevail, my thoughts are with you.
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