Mb settled to some extent over ten days . He was moved back to the original ward . In this transition he was unnoticed .Mb. came to Europe from Zaire when he was 22. A semi-professional football career of three years had ended with an injury . Four brothers and sisters lived and worked in Paris . They funded his passage to France , where he lived for 2-3 years , doing casual work , until found to be without papers , and then returned to Zaire some time about 1990 . In 1988 he had married and his wife Henrietta had travelled with him to France and returned with him when he was deported . Mb worked in a Zaire lottery , until it ceased when the government there took the money .
His parents were both killed by armed forces . Mb then left for Belgium with his wife , and thence to the UK. His own baby son died in 1994 . His wife had two children from a previous relationship .
In 1993 his marriage faltered and he invited "Lidie’ whom he had known in Zaire , to come and live with him in England . Some time after December 1993 she became pregnant . In the early half of 1994 Mb got mixed up with benefits claims , and the police had to be called . Subsequently he was charged with a minor fraud offence ,and for this was in prison on remand .He was released before the Court appearance . He learnt that ‘ Lidie ’, had the pregnancy terminated . After writing a long letter indicating suicide to relatives in Zaire , he visited Lidie at her flat apparently remonstrating and threatening her with a knife . Neighbours assembled and restrained him till the police called . Before they could do so Mb swallowed bleach , and went to hospital himself , accompanied then and always in the general hospital by a police presence . Lidie had to go to a different hospital with a broken nose .
Mb was not charged because he could not be interviewed . He was reluctant to be treated in hospital saying he wanted to die . He was seen by a consultant psychiatrist and then by the psychiatric assistant the next day , who noted fully his depression , and self harm , but did not especially note the potential charge for assault or the circumstances because he did not have an account directly from Mb.
An Approved social worker then interviewed Mb , agreed that a Section 3. MHAct Treatment Order should be made on the medical recommendations he examined . In his notes , he mentioned the police presence and the possible charge of an assault to be brought , listing the police telephone number to be contacted if there was a discharge impending . Mb was transferred to the local mental hospital admission ward . The clinical notes did not go with him , but the social worker report did .Mb continued to be in a depressed state , disturbed , and attempted to strangle himself with a nurse call cord , and did not cooperate or conform . He was moved to a ward for closer observation and management , with a care plan prepared by the first ward , but not with the visits from the named nurse as protocol expected , because one mistakenly had not been assigned in the first ward . The admitting notes completed with the assistance of a nurse interpretor described 'Lidie'as his woman companion , and did not record the address of his wife , nor make reference to the latter .
He left the hospital and went looking for "Lidie'. They met but were not reconciled . In the early hours of the next morning her body was found . Mb was charged . The first trial did not reach a verdict . The second gave one of guilty . Mb continued to deny the verdict .