Sentence for Nottingham killer?

Some years ago I worked with young people....one young man (who was misusing substances) suffered a psychotic episode.

I won't go into detail but it was one of the worst things I've ever seen and he literally was a different person - his violence directed at himself and items in his accommodation.

His G.P refused to attend and the advice was to take him to A&E...we couldn't get physically close to him - the end result was calling the police who arrested him after using CS gas, he was admitted to a hospital and he walked out 4 hours later.....the system is shocking and I'm not surprised that so many people are let down.

It's no good blaming the police or mental health workers in an unfunded and understaffed system.

It is most definitely not the case of apportioning blame. However if you had broken your leg, would you expect not to be treated? It’s time to recognise that mental health in the Uk needs a change of direction and fast.

Quote Grantanow Fri 26-Jan-24 14:57:36
It's no good blaming the police or mental health workers in an unfunded and understaffed system

The families will accept this ?

Let me reword it. It is also no good blaming a lack of funding and lacck of staff for what went wrong in this case, as with that poor little boy.

It is also the attitude and behaviour of staff that again and again get fobbed off by lying and devious parents/patients. This is part of the job, they should not be hoodwinked by these people, who are too ready to dismiss the concerns of any outsider, ie friends, neighbours others dealing with the person causing harm and an obsession with the rights of client/child whatsoever, forgetting completely about the rights of those attacked, killed, living with their client.

It is being reported the man is entitled to a review of his mental health in 3 years

To me the frightening thing is that, in a secure hospital, he will be forced to take his medication and will possibly appear to be reasonably well and not such a risk to the public. This could result in him being released at some stage in the future.
My daughter has psychotic episodes but at no time does she present a risk to anyone (other than possibly occasionally herself). She becomes unwell pretty quickly if she doesn't take her medication and a close watch is kept on her by the psychiatric services to ensure this doesn't happen. I am pretty disgusted that nobody seems to have been keeping an eye on this man when he was known to be so very violent.

cc there’s always the option of administering medication by injection so that there’s firm medical supervision.

The experts - and a case like this will be dealt with by experts - are not daft. They considered his particular problem to be incurable. He is not violent when taking his medication, which he will have to do in hospital, but we know that left to his own devices he would not, so he would become violent again. Many of us have to take medication for life and we understand that we must do so. He doesn’t and as he can’t be cured it is likely, as the judge said, that he will never be released.

But there is no cure for schizophrenia? It needs to be managed by antipsychotics. These can be given by injection. Of course this is a simple view and there may be a number of complications we don’t understand in this case.

It depends on the type of schizophrenia from what I picked up when watching the sentencing. This man refuses to believe that there is anything wrong with him, which is probably part of his particular problem, and therefore won’t take his medication voluntarily. Apparently he was still hearing voices whilst medicated and being observed by the experts who gave testimony. The same voices which told him to kill his victims or his family would be killed.

I listened to (some of) two different radio phone-ins about this case today.

SO many who said it should have been a murder charge. The presenters have explained again and again but still there's too many "shouty" people out there who just don't want to try to get their heads around it.

A brother of the dead young woman said something like "he looked ok" in the video recording in that he didn't have a trouser leg rolled up (i think that's what he said) and "knew what he was doing".

I do know and fully accept that I'd be devastated if it was one of my family 💔 ... but we do have laws - and at least the courts try to understand the mental capacity of the perpetrator...

No winners here as far as I can see. Both the families of the victims and the killer have to live with it - and so does the perpetrator when/if he is lucid.

Shouty people ? Anyone who you disagree with, the families of the victims?

People who say it should have been a murder charge don’t know what they are talking about. He would very probably have been acquitted of murder due to his mental health condition. That would mean he would have been free, remaining within the community until the next time. They really have no idea.

Didn’t something change years ago when it came to paranoid schizophrenics? A man was murdered and his wife campaigned for something to be done. I’m sure it was when mental hospitals were being closed and mentally ill people were going to be cared for in the community. The poor woman whose husband died must be horrified every time this happens again.

Jayne Zito.

That’s the one. Thank you. I kept googling Zecko.

Absolutely right. We do not understand.

We do not understand that a man who has slaughtered three people in cold blood, premeditated, unprovoked, who then attempted to murder three more, who refused to answer any question other than 'no comment', but then claimed at a later date to have heard voices telling him to kill people,who never expressed a shred of remorse, is deemed guilty of manslaughter not murder and will 'probably ', not definitely, be detained for life. Is it it right that this person, should he recover his mental health, ever be released ever into the community? After what he has done?
We, the public, expect protection but our concerns are negated by squabbles over the letter of the law, for the protection of this evil man.

And the brother of one of the victims is mocked for saying "he looked ok" in the video recording in that he didn't have a trouser leg rolled up (i think that's what he said) and "knew what he was doing".
If the words of someone in deep distress are to be criticized, at least have the decency to find out exactly what they were.

As was said, these murdered people did not lose their lives, they were taken from them.

I was upset by the mocking of the young brother

Anniebach

Shouty people ? Anyone who you disagree with, the families of the victims?

No. The ones who were angry and shouting!
Everyone has an opinion and entitled to have one.

eazybee and Anniebach I was not, and would not mock anyone bereaved. I said I would be devastated to have to live with this pain. No one should have to.

I am sorry you read this as mocking.

My point (which was obviously badly put if you have both read it as mocking) was that so many people seem not to grasp that the laws here are written so that people can do terrible things but still be very very ill.
Not everyone has an understanding of mental ill health inspite of quite a lot being written or spoken of it.

As I said, the courts are tasked with trying to understand the mental capacity of the perpetrator.

That's all.

A grieving brother didn’t grasp the law , shocking

Bloody hell that's twice on GN that people have admitted to not getting thing s quite right today, thats unheard of on the internet.
I thought notspaghettis response was very gracious annie.
I hope I do as well if I phrase things in a way that could be misinterpreted.
The sentence is being reviewed by the way.

The young boy is grief stricken , why use his words , should a 17 year old grasp the law ?

eazybee I think the problem is the way the law is worded, in actuality the chances of him ever being released are infinitismally small. Possibly the wording of these sentences needs to be re thought, or they could be worded so that he is given a prison sentence but ordered to spend it in a psychiatric hospita until deemed fit to be sent to anormal prison. White a number of high profile prisoners, like Peter Sutcliffe, one of the Kra brothers and, I think, Ian Brady, spent their sentences variously in prison and in criminal psychiatric hospitals.

He was someone with a history of mental illness. It is not a case that he only claimed later that he was hearing voices. He had been in contact with the mental health authorities a number of times and been sectioned several times in the years running up to this attack We know the reason he was not taking hs medication was because he knew that the voices he was hearing were real and therefore he did not need medication.

Of course he has not expressed remorse, because he is very severely mentally ill and is incapable of understanding that what he is done is so heinous. He was doing what his voices told him to do.