200 failed by the system: the suicide victims who shame Britain

This isn't about veterans, or even just PTSD, but mental health. While these people needed help, serious help, to save their lives, they were not taken care of. No one expects that all people who are so depressed they want to commit suicide will be saved, but in these cases, their cries for help were heard. The suicide was not prevented, but postponed. They were left to fall through the cracks. You need not wonder too hard to find the same kind of problems with veterans. We, here in the US, have found out that there are people crying for help here as well, but too often their rescue is only temporary.

We've seen it in veterans seeking help from the VA, but were turned away. We've seen it when the police respond and they end up being killed, usually on purpose in what is called, suicide by cop. Until people take mental health seriously, as seriously as any other health problem, this will keep happening.

Kathie Costos
email Namguardianangel@aol.com

200 failed by the system: the suicide victims who shame Britain
Each year, two hundred mentally ill people locked up by police because there is no room in the health service commit suicide within 48 hours of release. Andrew Johnson uncovers a scandal that has astonished even hardened campaigners
Published: 12 August 2007

A young plasterer and father, Martin Middleton, was threatening to kill himself when the police were called to his flat in the Cross Gates area of Leeds. They arrested him for his own safety under the Mental Health Act, but an hour later he was released. The next day he was found hanged at his flat.

Philip Edmondson was just 30 when he threatened to jump from the window of his flat in Wellington, Somerset, in September last year. Again police were called, and he was held under section 136 of the Mental Health Act for his own safety. Twelve hours or so later he was released after being examined by a doctor and a psychiatrist. Two hours after his release Mr Edmondson walked in front of a train in Taunton and was killed instantly.

The families behind these two tragic situations will receive some answers when inquests open into the cases over the next two months. But every year there are up to 200 such stories. Stories of devastated families and the wasted lives of vulnerable people who take their own lives within two days of leaving police custody.

Such is the concern that the Independent Police Complaints Commission has mounted a major investigation into the use of police cells to hold people with mental health problems. Under the law, when police are forced to arrest mentally ill people, often for minor offences or because they are a danger to themselves, they have to take them to a "place of safety". This should be a hospital or psychiatric ward, or, as a last resort, a police cell.

Initial findings from the IPCC reveal, however, that 11,500 people a year – 31 a day – are held in police cells for up to 18 hours at a time. This is believed to be an underestimate because not all forces report all cases. As many as 200 a year are thought to kill themselves within 48 hours of their release.

Mental health organisations argue that police do not have the training to care for mentally ill people, and the police say it takes up their time and resources to do a job which is not in their remit. Both agree that a police cell is "inappropriate" for the care of vulnerable people.

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