FIRST REPORT
The Home Affairs Committee has agreed to the following
Report:—
MANAGING DANGEROUS PEOPLE WITH SEVERE
PERSONALITY DISORDER
INTRODUCTION
1. In October 1998 Michael Stone was given three
life sentences for the murder of Mrs Lin Russell and her daughter
Megan and the attempted murder of Megan's sister, Josie. According
to press reports, Stone was a drug addict with a history of violence
and criminal convictions. An inquiry has been set up to examine
how Stone, who was reported to suffer from a severe personality
disorder but was not classed as mentally ill, was looked after
in the run-up to the murders. It is thought that he had sought
medical support before the crime but had not received it on that
occasion.[9]
He had been helped by local agencies over a long period but had
not been a detained patient.
2. The murders committed by Stone caused very
real alarm and raised very difficult questions as to the reconciliation
of two powerful forces—the need to protect the civil liberties
of those who have not committed an offence; and the need to protect
society from the offence that they may commit.
3. This example highlights such issues as why people
are released from prison when they are known still to be dangerous,
why the courts do not give discretionary life sentences in appropriate
cases and why people who ask for medical help do not necessarily
receive it. In particular, the Stone case poses the question:
Is it right that the State should be powerless to intervene in
a case where someone has yet to commit a criminal offence and
whom the medical profession consider to be untreatable, even if
that person poses a very real danger to society?
4. The Government has put forward proposals to provide
better protection for the public while meeting the needs of people
with severe personality disorder. The Home Office Minister told
us "these proposals ... represent a new approach to the treatment
and management of this relatively small number of people: that
puts public protection first".[10]
The risk to the public was described graphically to us by Mr Boateng:
"I myself was recently in the special unit
... and talked to officers there, and they were able to identify
to me one man shortly to be released who they were absolutely
convinced would offend again; was highly dangerous; who had been
in prison for a long time; whose condition remained as it was
and who presented a risk to the public".[11]
5. An example of the difficulties which can arise
happened under the different legal system in Scotland in August
1999. A man killed a neighbour while intoxicated and paranoid.
After pleading guilty to culpable homicide he was diagnosed as
suffering from the mental disorder of paranoid schizophrenia and
ordered to be detained in a hospital. While he was in hospital,
the diagnosis was changed to that of anti-social personality disorder.
It was subsequently judged that medical treatment in hospital
was not likely to alleviate his condition. He appealed against
continued detention under the mental health legislation on the
grounds that he no longer had a treatable mental illness. The
court decided that since he was not treatable he could no longer
be detained. The Scottish Parliament subsequently passed legislation
to amend the law to require the courts to take public safety into
account when considering applications for release and make it
plain that the definition of mental disorder includes personality
disorder.[12]
6. The "fault lines of the existing system"[13]
which the new proposals are designed to address are:
| dangerous offenders are not being given discretionary life sentences as often as they could be |
| offenders who have completed determinate (i.e. fixed term) sentences have to be released even if they are assessed as remaining dangerous |
| people whose severe personality disorder is untreatable and who are dangerous cannot always be detained under the Mental Health Act 1983 |
| whether an individual who has committed an offence and has a severe personality disorder ends up in prison or is detained under the Mental Health Act may depend not so much on his state of mind or his perceived dangerousness but on such factors as whether a bed is available in a secure psychiatric hospital or whether the prosecution in his case was prepared to accept a plea of diminished responsibility. |
Fault Lines
9 Q92 (Mind). Back
10 Q126
(Mr Boateng). Back
11 Q115. Back
12 Mental
Health (Public Safety and Appeals) (Scotland) Act 1999. Back
13 Q113
(Mr Boateng). Back
| 
