Vast and Gruesome.

Hi - Please check out my little film about my book:

Mental Health Human Rights Survey.

Hi - I have now published a survey which will form part of a research paper, looking at how patients feel about the law, and how they may feel in the future, should the law change.

The Uplift of Human Rights in Mental Health.

About the Research.

As part of a response to the UN Convention on the Rights for People with Disabilities (CRPD), which made it illegal for people to be detained and forcibly treated for having a mental illness, I am conducting some research into how patients might feel about having more rights and maybe the use of magistrates to help patients and their doctors make decisions about their care. Although the CRPD doesn’t prevent the state from detaining mentally unwell people and compelling them to take medication, this new international law, makes it harder for governments to continue the practice of detaining people and compelling them to take medication. The UK government for example, has not changed the law in the light of the changes to international laws. This research is being carried out to find out more about what patients think about such laws.

Who is Carrying Out This Research?

My name is Ben Bamber, and I am a patient who has been involved in helping the local Trust, as Chairman of the User Forum, in 2001-2003 and I work as a writer having been published in the psychiatric literature several times.

Why Am I Doing This Research?

Last year I decided, inspired by the changes to international laws, to look more closely at why patients are denied some of their basic rights and how patients might feel should they get the same or similar rights to people accused of a crime. This research will seek to establish patient’s views on increasing the rights for mentally unwell people.

Funding.

The research is being funded by Ben Bamber.

Who Has Approved this Research?

This research has been produced with the assistance of 2gether NHS Foundation Trust R&D Department.

What Will Happen to the Information Collected by the Project?

The information will be collated and will form part of a report, supporting or otherwise the introduction of more and better rights for mentally unwell people. The report will be made available to patients, carers, professionals and MP’s, plus the news media in the form of a press release. No personal data will be included in the report. All data relating to your identity will be destroyed.

Also an article will be written and submitted to a psychiatric journal, which has not yet been chosen, for publication and to be made available to clinical staff. This will help professionals understand what it is like to have your rights restricted when detained in hospital.

Other Information.

You are not in any way obliged to take part. If you do not wish to participate then that’s okay. None of your personal details be recorded as all questionnaires will be completely anonymous.

Go to survey...

Nicola Edgington.

This case is horrific in the extreme. Nicola Edgington who killed her mother, got released after a few years and then attempted to kill someone, then after making several calls to the Police to warn them that she was going to kill someone, murdered a stranger, almost decapitating her. She got 37 years in jail, but as the judge signed off on her sentence, he effectively blamed her and told her that she must take responsibility for her actions. The laws are there to bring dangerous people like her into hospital, and the law is there to ensure that people with a diminished capacity to prevent themselves doing terrible things, should not then be blamed when things go wrong. While a sane Edgington could feel regret, remorse and see her actions as we see them, she clearly could not.

If the law was adequate in this case, if mentally unwell people were given a habeas corpus protection, then this woman would have been arrested for threats to kill, (even though her threats were non-specific), she would have been arraigned, her case would have been argued and examined in court and she would have come into custody for further treatment. But because the law is vague and depends largely on doctors to make assessments, whilst knowing there are pressures on beds and resources, the automatic system that would have kicked in at the point at which she was seen by Police, she was left to kill and maim people instead.

Also, the Police did not take her seriously. They had her in their care and for some reason did not listen to her claim that she felt that she wanted to kill someone. This is just a mystery to me.

Lastly, this is the second case in recent months where the media have been allowed to openly discuss decapitation of victims of mentally unwell people. If one mentally ill person, decapitates someone - a stranger, and that story is openly discussed in the national media, it is the equivalent of a hundred killings by mad people, in terms of the impact on the lives of mentally unwell people who would never kill anyone, no matter how ill they are. Now there have been two horrific murders, the media have reinforced very powerful stereotypes and has made life even harder for mentally ill people, trying desperately to reintegrate into the community. Shame on the government for allowing these details into the media and shame on the media for repeating them.

Kalkion Publishes Short

Kalkion the online short story publisher has just published my story The Rioters Candle. Please go read it...It follows a young man arrested during the Arab Spring uprising. He is put into jail beneath the Presiential Palace, where he is visited by a mysterious stranger.

Vagabond Unlimited Relaunches

I have just launches a new version of http://www.vagabond-unlimited.co.uk, which uses HTML5 instead of flash to keep up with changing web use on phones and tablets. Flash has for a long time been unavailable for use on many hand held devices. I've added some new content including some new Ted on Street cards and some articles, including one on post apocalyptic literature. Please check it out before you go.

The Gun Lobby Moves Against the Mentally Ill

The gun lobby stayed silent for a while after the Newtown killings. Perhaps they were in shock. They are not known for their sympathy for victims of gun crime. But it comes as no surprise that as the leading politicians wanting gun control laws, such as Mayor Bloomberg and Obama, begin to come out in favour of more gun controls, the gun lobby has to provide its own answer to the problem. Scapegoat the mentally ill. Yes, that's it. Blame the mentally ill and the mental health system. The shooting in Tuscan, which almost killed Senator Gabrielle Giffords, involved someone with severe mental health problems. Anders Brievik on the other hand, struggled throughout his trial to show that he was perfectly sane when he killed 77 people, and got what he wanted. The gun lobby just won't learn. But how powerful are they? Can they really control legislation in America? We will just have to wait and see.

The Grievance Collector.

A Grievance Collector is the latest piece of neat jargon, to describe people who blow up and go on a sudden random killing spree. Many nations suffer this phenomenon, and nobody really pretends to understand why people do it. The Grievance Collector will be someone who is not coping with their lives, someone who feels he is being hurt by everyone around them, usually it seems by being excluded from a social standing, that is comparable with his peers. Someone who may or may not have some kind of mental disorder. In the latest and one of the most horrific examples in Newtown Connecticut, children have become the principal target for this killer, Adam Lanza. There are many other examples. The machete attack at a Birmingham school a few years ago. The Dunblane attack in Scotland and there were two attacks on young children in China also. These tragic events are often linked to mental disorder. And while it makes sense to explain that these men are suffering mental health difficulties, it doesn't help the rest of us, who have mental health problems, integrate with the community. I know for a fact that I am not likely to hurt anyone because I feel isolated or insulted by people's attitude. It doesn't stop me feeling hurt, or angry. But unfortunately, very occasionally someone with access to very powerful weapons, especially in this latest incident, will carry out these terrible crimes, attacking people who could never have personally hurt them. Over time the Grievance Collector will build up a series of hurts, insults and his anger will grow, until he snaps. Why these people decide to hurt children is an unknown part of the process. It seems they choose the most horrific thing they can possibly think of and then do it. Why these people don't choose to simply take their own lives, if they're so unhappy is also a mystery. Anders Brievik stands out as the only one who seemed to want to survive after his crime. Most seem to want to take their own lives, often as part of the plan, rather than a sudden realisation of their crime and the shame they feel afterwards. But I don't know. Maybe that is why some of them commit suicide, that it isn't part of the plan? Perhaps it is out of fear of what might happen to them - that they don't want to go to prison for the rest of their lives? Whatever it is that drives these men to kill, it is certainly at the very extreme of human behaviour, and must be understood more. The political response, whatever it might be, must be harsh and it must work. These killings cannot carry on.

The downside is how people feel about the mentally disordered person living in the community. There is a lot of fear out there. When I had a story in the Gloucestershire Echo, asking for more rights, some of the comments, seemed quite typical to me and what I would expect people to say, after seeing such a terrible crime unfold on the news in Connecticut.

Someone using the name Glosanarchy, said:

"If a schizophrenic kills your family following various previous violent episodes would you say it's OK because if they had locked him up before it would have been against his rights?

If your sibling jumped in front of a train because the mental health services didn't force treatment, it's fine you won't go running to the papers to blame it on the NHS will you?

If your entire family is burnt to death by a pyromaniac it's fine he wasn't kept locked up after his prison sentence for the protection of the general public because it would affect his human rights.

What about the human rights of the general public?”

Bonkim2003 added: "I have to agree with GlosAnarchy regards public safety being paramount. Regrettably you need to cut out an infected finger or two to save the person - likewise a few deranged harming themselves or being locked up is O.K by me. Individual rights - prisoners, mentally deranged or criminals - can rightfully curtailed if they pose a danger to the rest.”

These very unpleasant comments, posted underneath my story, illustrate just how much ignorance there is about mental illness. Uneducated people like this cannot be expected to know that the vast majority, backed up by the medical evidence, are not at risk of carrying out horrific crimes. Many of the people that go on killing sprees for example, aren't known to mental health services. But the public cannot be expected to be liberal and to hold liberal views about risk posed by mentally disordered people, even though the medical evidence shows us that we can work out those who are at high risk of violence, from their case histories. The problem is that perceived risk, is what gets you locked up, which includes the public fears, justified or not. The public and therefore the government, won't countenance the idea that people who have a full assessment, taking into account the medical evidence, about those that pose a risk or are more likely to pose a risk, can be treated differently. Many members of public want mentally ill people locked up forever, in large asylums, but are not prepared pay for it. In other words people want to be away from the mentally ill. They don't want to live next door to a mentally unwell person. They feel fearful. And incidents like those in the US are tragic for many reasons, including the affect it has on public perception of mental ill health.