How Can You Be A Carer With This Record?

A violent and abusive man has been locked up indefinitely for stabbing his sister 40 times in what her family described as a "totally avoidable" killing.

Yet another case where the warning signs of dangerous mental illness were ignored. They come along so fast now I've quite lost count...

At the time of the fatal attack, he was suffering a severe depressive episode with psychotic symptoms, having repeatedly sought medical help.Cunningham admitted manslaughter by diminished responsibility and was handed a hospital order without limit of time.

Or until someone who won't face any consequrnces for a wrong decision lets him out, 

Sentencing him on Wednesday, Judge Mark Lucraft KC said: "This was a sustained attack resulting in multiple injuries and would have continued over some period of time."He noted Cunningham's history of "violence and abuse" towards his sister and a non-molestation order against him.

Earlier, prosecutor Nneka Akudolu KC said the defendant had lived alone with his mother, Margaret Cunningham senior, in Greenland Quay and been her carer since the death of his father in 2022.

What!? How can he be judged to be a suitable carer for a vulnerable person? And it gets worse: 

His family had repeatedly raised concerns with his GP and the defendant had himself contacted the surgery 10 times in October and November 2024. The court was also told Cunningham had a history of drug-induced psychosis and smoking cannabis.

The court was told Cunningham had 21 previous convictions for 31 offences including assault, burglary and an armed robbery when he was aged 19.

 A mentally ill criminal drug taker - how can that be judged to be a suitable carer?

"Explaining behaviour is not the same as excusing it. Accountability matters. Margie's suffering matters. Margie's life matters."

Yes, it does. But there won't be any in this case, as in so many others.

He Wasn't 'Left To Fall Through Every Crack' - The System Built The Cracks And Pushed Him Through Them

When Leigh White remembers her brother Ryan, she thinks of a boy of extraordinary ability who “won five scholarships at 11” including a coveted place at Bancroft’s, a private school in London. He was, she said, “super bright, witty, personable, generous and kind”. Ryan killed himself on 12 May 2024. A report written after his death acknowledged significant shortcomings in the support he received while seeking help for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Like many people the Guardian spoke to, he followed the “right to choose” pathway, whereby patients can pick a private provider anywhere in England for assessment, diagnosis and initial treatment. They then ask their GP to enter a shared-care agreement for prescriptions and monitoring.

Sounds great, right? It isn't of course. 

However, Ryan struggled to get the two services to link up.The problem lies in the fact that shared care is voluntary and not all GPs agree to it.

Once again, these overpaid bureacrats are the sand in the gears. Because they don't agree with the policy, presumably. 

Some patients told the Guardian their doctor had rejected their private diagnosis on the grounds that it did not meet their standards.

And no, it's - for once - not down to money. 

This was even after the NHS had paid for it – and despite there being no official rules for private providers to follow.

*sighs* 

...he was referred by his GP for an ADHD assessment with Psychiatry UK, a private provider, in September 2022. It took five months for him to be assessed and diagnosed, but because of his bipolar history a community mental health review was needed before medication could begin. “Nobody chased anything, or took responsibility,” Leigh said.

Welvome to the NHS - in fact, welcome to every government run service in the world, it seems. 

He was deregistered by his GP practice after he expressed frustration at the delay in getting him help.

And because they can and will do this to those who complain without suffering any consequence, it will never improve. 

Right to choose was “poorly regulated, poorly managed and some people are making lots of money out of it”, Adamou said, adding: “If you don’t have regulation for that you are inviting a wild west.”

Regulation isn't going to solve this - consequences for failure will. 

Not 'Misguided' - Call Them What They Were: 'Incompetent'....

...and sack them. We'll all be safer without them.

Security minister Dan Jarvis said ‘there was sufficient risk for the perpetrator to have been managed through Prevent’, adding: ‘There are serious questions about how various agencies failed to identify and collectively act on the warning signs.’ Southport MP Patrick Hurley said: ‘Some of the details in this report, in this review, beggar belief.’ Yesterday the damning insight of the case revealed how Rudakubana, now 18, had admitted carrying a knife at school more than ten times, talked about ‘getting teachers murdered’ and wanted to knife a boy he had attacked with a hockey stick to ‘finish him off’.

Which should, in a sane world, suffice to finish off the careers of the idiots in Prevent who handled his case. But won't, of course. They won't even be named.  

Yet in a rush to close his case ‘prematurely’, experts may have failed to consider all the evidence because his name was misspelt in files, the report said. Prevent also did not complete lines of inquiries and concerns that he posed a risk to staff and students were brushed off as a ‘knee-jerk reaction’.

Misguided officers placed ‘too much focus’... ‘on the absence of a distinct ideology’, and missed signs of his escalating risk, the report concluded.

In short, they were incompetent at the very basics of their job. As is so often the case with those tasked with protecting us. Perhaps understandably so, as those who do a good job and do it well are often punished for it years later.  

Yesterday Mr Jarvis announced that Rudakubana will be considered as a ‘registered terrorist offender’ after he was jailed last month for 52 years for the murders and for producing the poison ricin using a terrorist manual.

Finally, common sense breaks out! 

Head of Counter-Terrorism Policing Matt Jukes said the Prevent system was ‘not equipped’ at the time to deal with ‘emerging risks that were very different to those it had been built to address’.

Or with good spelling and grammar, which would seem to be a good place to start. Who knows how many other threats are lurking in the database with different spellings preventing them from being collated?