Aged 23 he was diagnosed as having paranoid schizohrenia. Outside secure and supervised treatment, he never really lost intrusive voices, generally morbid, and sometimes with insistent demands, and commands connected with religious misbeliefs. His initial illness of schizophrenia was never brought into full and social remission outside hospital.

During hospital periods of admission he declared homicidal intentions on two or more occasions.

He frequently went absent from mental hospital wards. He never settled in hostels where he shared rooms amidst those who used street drugs.

In a medium secure Unit he was more settled but deteriorated again when returning to the less supervised ordinary mental hospital. Finally, whilst awaiting a more structured placement found by his parents, before it could be funded by the local trust, he absconded from hospital , and later stabbed the owner of a house he had broken into.

Overpowered, he was detained in custody and later after trial went to a special Hospital on a Court order.

He later killed himself there with his shoe laces.