M I C A	Mr Kopernik-Steckel, a successful architect, committed suicide in January 1996 immediately after stabbing his mother, Suzanne, 57, at her home in South Norwood, South London. In the two days leading up to the deaths, Mr Kopernik-Steckel, 33, had twice voluntarily admitted himself to a psychiatric hospital. An independent inquiry into the killings published in 1997 found that on each occasion he was allowed to leave the ward, even though medical staff recognised that he posed a danger to himself and to others and one doctor had described his mother as a "sitting duck". The trust admitted liability and settled the case last week, two weeks before it was due to go to court. Ms Kopernik-Steckel, who has suffered from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression since the events and has been unable to work, said yesterday that she was extremely relieved to have settled the case. "I took the action because I wanted to transform something negative that happened into something positive that could benefit everybody and limit the scope for this sort of thing to happen again," she said. She was highly critical of the drawn-out and gruelling legal process that she had to go through to bring her case, which she initiated in 1998 and which included five sessions of being examined by mental health experts and sitting psychiatric tests. "I would have liked to take the case to trial because it would have been much better to have a judicial decision, but it was intolerable and it was slowly destroying me. I found I was constantly monitoring myself and my feelings so that I could be ready to give reports to people in legally precise language, which actively prohibited a healing process." At the time of the killings Ms Kopernik-Steckel was taking a year out after graduating from St Anne's College, Oxford. Experts say that her psychological reaction to witnessing her brother kill her mother has severely affected her ability to function at all levels of her life and has significantly limited her ability to work at the levels at which she might have performed before the tragedy. The statistical chances of recovering from PTSD are 20 per cent. With ten GCSEs at grade A, four A levels at grade A and one at grade B, and a 2.1 degree in philosophy, politics and economics from Oxford, her prospects were widely accepted to have been promising. Areas in which she had considered working included the media and international development. "I worked very hard to get my A levels and degree and was very interested in reaping the benefits of all my hard work," she said. "I really did feel that the world was my oyster. "It's impossible to do the things I would have done because from my perspective I can't relate to the world as I did before. Now that I fall into the category of being a mentally disordered person, I don't know what level of discrimination I'm likely to encounter." Sally Moore, a partner of Leigh, Day and Co, the solicitors acting for Ms Kopernik-Steckel, said the case was ground-breaking because it was the first to fulfil the strict criteria needed for claiming negligence against a hospital for the actions of a third party. "This case highlights the enormous difficulties that people face in bringing such legal actions, but at the same time it shows it can be done," Ms Moore said yesterday. Michael Howlett, of the Zito Trust, a mental health charity that has been providing suppport to Ms Kopernik-Steckel, said: "Mental health services have been failing individuals and families for years and yet there has been no real accountability in spite of considerable evidence of bad practice amounting to negligence. "This record settlement sends a clear message to all mental health services and it's one they will need to study very carefully." back to Greenwell; Kopernik-Stekel