The parents of a man stabbed to death by a paranoid schizophrenic said last night that it was a 'terrible mistake' to allow the killer to live in the community.

Landscape gardener Daniel Quelch, 34, suffered 82 knife wounds during a frenzied attack after Benjamin Frankum broke into his parents' bungalow.

Yesterday, a jury took less than an hour to find him responsible for the killing, after Judge Zoe Smith ruled he was unfit to be tried for murder.
He was ordered to be detained in Broadmoor Hospital for an unlimited time.

A full independent inquiry was announced as it emerged Frankum was assessed
for detention under the Mental Health Act several weeks before the killing - but not found to be a danger to the public.

Frankum, 26, broke into the house near Maidenhead, Berkshire, last August,
and stabbed Mr Quelch as he lay in bed beside his youngest son. Reading Crown Court heard Frankum had been in and out of hospital with mental illness.
On one occasion in 2001, he was sectioned and diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic.

However, because he had no history of violence or previous convictions, he was free to leave.
In early 2007, he discharged himself from a hospital and moved into supported accommodation in Littlehampton, West Sussex, where he was living at the time of the attack.

Authorities allowed him to live in supported accommodation early in 2007 but he did not take his medication, as he had failed to do many times in the past when released from hospital, jurors were told.

But after failing to take his medication for a number of weeks, he killed landscape gardener Mr Quelch, who was asleep in bed with his two-year-old son.

He told police he had been sent by MI5 to kill Mr Quelch.
A jury was asked to decide whether he was responsible for killing Mr Quelch following a trial at Reading Crown Court.

It took them just over an hour to convict him. Judge Smith said the killing was ‘truly horrific’ and sentenced Frankum to a hospital order under the Mental Health Act with an additional restriction order without limit of time.

Mr Quelch’s family described the murder as ‘the beginning of a nightmare that will never end’
and said after the case that they are now awaiting an independent inquiry which will look into the events that led to the tragedy.

Following the verdict, harrowing statements from Mr Quelch’s parents, Ernest and Barbara, were read to the court in which they described how their son’s death had devastated their lives. Mr Quelch, a builder from Maidenhead, Berkshire, said he had been unable to work
and suffered severe depression since Frankum killed his son.

He said: ‘Somebody let him out of hospital and he was free to walk the streets.
I would like to be sure he will never again be free to do to anyone else what he has done to us.’

His wife’s statement, read to the judge, added

: ‘A terrible mistake was made when Benjamin Frankum was released from care. ‘He is clearly a danger to the public. I beg you to make sure he will never be released.’ The jury had heard how Daniel Quelch was staying at his parents’ house where his three children, aged eight, four and two, had been having a sleep-over party. Prosecutor Nigel Daly had said what happened was ‘everybody’s worst nightmare’. He said: ‘
Daniel Quelch was asleep in bed with his two-year-old son. Benjamin Frankum, a paranoid schizophrenic, came into his house. They did not know each other.

Frankum later admitted in police interview that he had stabbed Mr Quelch and tests later showed he had not been taking his medication.

Before killing Mr Quelch, Frankum had crashed his mother Diane King’s Range Rover into a wall at her house near Maidenhead.
He then walked over to Mrs Quelch’s house with the family dog, who was found at the scene of the crime, the court heard.
He later blamed the murder on a group of gangsters he claimed were following him around.

Mr Quelch, from Spencers Wood, Reading, was a keen fisherman and a season ticket holder at Reading FC, often taking his children along to matches.

After the case his mother read a statement outside court in which she said the family had also lost their home of 26 years because they could not bring themselves to return following the murder.
The statement read: ‘It has been a terrible year - just the beginning of a nightmare that will never end. Everything in our lives has been changed forever by this one brutal crime. ‘The material losses are nothing compared to the misery of the loss of Danny himself and we would give all we have to have him back.
‘Whilst we are pleased to see the end of the trial, for us it is only one step forward.
'Now we have an agonising wait for an independent inquiry which will be set up to look into the events
which led to the terrible tragedy that took place on August 23 last year. ‘We pray that it will ensure no other families will lose a loved one in this way".

Letter from the Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust In the Guardian newspaper 120/10/08 .....

" Your reporting of the Healthcare Commission ( October 16 ) was generally excellent.
However, one vital fact was missing: this is that mental health trusts have been rated as one of the best -performing parts of the NHS.
It is only fair to highlight the fact that MHS services, often covered in the media when things go wrong, provide some of the best care.
Staff at the mental health trust I lead have worked hard to offer excellent services and to provide evidence for doing so.
We know improvements must continue and we welcome further scrutiny.

The public should be reassured that mental health services are getting better year on year
Lisa Rodrigues.
Chair, Mental Health Network, and
Chief Executive, Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.

We want answers, rages father of 14-year-old girl raped at knifepoint by escaped mental patient, Daily Mail, 10th September 2008 The father of a 14-year-old girl raped by an escaped psychiatric patient has told of his fury over the case.

After Darren Harkin, 21, was jailed for attacking the teenager twice at knifepoint, her father demanded answers from the authorities.

He said: 'Who knows what he might have gone on to do if they had not caught him? 'No one seems able to give us any answers until an official report is finished. 'We need to know what went wrong and what is being done to make sure it doesn't happen again.' He said his daughter had been so traumatised she could not talk about her ordeal with her family. 'My daughter was too upset to tell us what had happened,' he said. 'She told a female police officer who relayed it to us. 'Even now she refuses to talk about the rape. She seems all right on the surface, but she's just blocking it all out.' He said he was proud of her for reporting the assault so that her attacker was caught immediately. 'We're pleased that Harkin pleaded guilty,' he added. 'I was worried a trial would bring all the memories flooding back.'

An official inquiry has been launched to look at why Harkin, who had been committed eight years ago for stabbing his baby brother to death, was being held in a low-security institution.

Staff at Hayes Hospital near Bristol were not allowed to be alone with Harkin because he was considered to be such a threat.

But he was allowed to keep a collection of pornography and horror films and was taken by staff to see violent films at the cinema.<

Harkin admitted rape, burglary and absconding from custody at Reading Crown Court on Monday. Recorder of Cardiff Judge Nicholas Cooke, QC, called him ' exceptionally dangerous', and ordered that he be detained indefinitely at the high-security Broadmoor Hospital.

He also added to demands for an inquiry, saying: 'How on earth could it be thought appropriate that someone who has murdered his brother be allowed to have access to horror films? 'How can it be that the alarm was not raised immediately after someone who has been identified as such a danger was allowed to escape? 'This is not the first time this has happened - I hope by now the Home Office should consider such things. This needs to be investigated.'

After the hearing Conservative MP David Davies said:
'I have spoken to the family of the victim many times and they are very angry with the way this case has been handled.
'What concerns me is that the police were not informed he was dangerous when he escaped. If someone is classed as highly dangerous then neighbouring police forces are alerted.

But I understand Harkin's status was on the verge of being downgraded at the time of his escape. The fault lies with the people who downgraded his dangerous status - the Home Office and the National Autistic Society, who run Hayes Hospital.'

Hill first showed signs of mental illness in the 1990s, when she was 17 and saw a child psychiatrist for anxiety. In 2000 she twice attempted suicide and throughout the year was prescribed drugs for anxiety, depression and sleeplessness.
In January 2003, shortly before Naomi was born, Hill was diagnosed with chronic anxiety and in April had a "hypermanic" [ hypomanic = one side of bipolar illness ] episode. Naomi was born 10 weeks premature in a "difficult" birth in June. Almost immediately Hill suffered puerperal depression, a severe form of postnatal depression.

She was treated by her local community health team; appearing to make a quick recovery, she was recommended for discharge from outpatient care in September.

On Boxing Day 2006 she had a severe relapse [ medication stopped ? ] and left the family home to be cared for by her parents.
But she recovered and went back to work part-time in March and then full-time a month later.
In June doctors decided there was no need for further involvement by the local mental health team and in August her case was closed, although she remained under the care of her GP and on several types of medication.
In November it was recorded that she was drinking heavily, increasing the risk of depression and the likelihood that she would stop taking her medicine.

Later that month she killed Naomi.

After the child's death North Wales NHS trust conducted an interim review looking at the care she had, and recommended improvements to policies.

A spokesman said yesterday these had been implemented. A full review is being completed under the control of Flintshire local safeguarding children board.

Alice Maynard, chair of Scope, said: "This case raises the wider issue of how many disabled parents still don't get the support they need in bringing up children and how society continues to portray disability in a negative light, creating shame and stigma around impairment. Tragically, in this instance, this combination of factors proved lethal."

Comment 1

The family of Francom had reported out of order behaviour. He was known to suffer from schizophrenia. It is likely that he responded to medication was documented. The nature of the illness was clear.
The degree of it was at a disturbing level, as indicated by the observed behaviour.

There were grounds for detention by section 3 under the MHAct.
The stopping of medication would have been noted. Were any attempts to assess comp[liance?
A community Order would have followed and medication more closely supervised, and the family better supported. Is it in the best interests of the patient that they be left with active illness, better leaving them to be ill

Set aside the tragedy, the risk of which could not be foreseen. Why leave someone ill with this illness in the face of family noting the illness is there. ?? what reason ? the stigma of section ?? the forfeiture of trust ??

The result allowed is further stigma, further public worry that 'schizophrenics' - are unpredictable killers who can kill strangers, and two families who are secondary victims of the tragedy, as Francom and his victim both.

An alternative view is that his care failed him, and he was left untreated. How will the public deal with that? The system of care in place let him down, disregarding the public observation that he was ill again, and not co-operating because of illness left active and unattended..

Some people suffering from schizophrenia can manage to live in a settled way without medication. The point is that they have demonstrated and maintained that level of social success, so that they are untroublesome , even if the living is in a limited way.

Intervention is not warranted.

Here the level of living was not settled, was not tolerable, and it could not be considerd that his standard of living behaviour was sustainable.

Comment 2.

How and why was Harken first admitted to a medium secure Unit is not explained.
Harken had been observed for a long period and diagnosed in a private Medium secure Unit fifty miles away. Who arranged his move back into his home area, knowing that his further care was to be in a Home run by people whose experience of caring was at the high spectrum end of the autistic diagnosis.
Their limited experience of mental illness, and risk analysis, would have been taken into account before moving him. It would have required a recommendation to , and an approval from the Home Office if , as the MP states, they were parties to his Care arrangements. There seems to have been no connection with local community team services, nor psychiatric advice, and no fall back contact with the medium Secure unit.

Comment 3.

Mrs Hill complicated her situation by drinking. She was nevertheless being prescribed medications - not named - why not ? She had previously had a depressive puerperal illness, seemingly successfully relieved by medication. She was also described as 'hyp(er) omanic' at some stage. That, if accurate, , together with the previous puerperal depression, relkieved by medication, indicate a bipolar liability. The psychiatric opinion to the Court pointed to a mental health disorder.She is Imprisoned.

The public draw the conclusion that respect for the mental health services is falling. The service is in disorder, and disarray, unable or unwilling to use their authority on behalf of patients, inexplicably unable to engage the resources at their disposable.

E-mail reaction is welcome ,,, click on mica@jidgey.e7even.com