Thinking in Silo’s exacerbates problem

18 February 2015

Calls for openness around offending by mental health patients has come from the Sensible Sentencing Trust in the wake of the murder of Cathy Stewart.

Ms Stewart’s body was discovered following a violent attack last Saturday afternoon, a 29 year old has been arrested and charged in relation to her death.

Sensible Sentencing Trust spokesman on mental health offending, Graeme Moyle, is disappointed by comments quoted in the media by police and mental health service representatives which refer to Ms Stewart’s death as an isolated incident. “Both Detective Senior Sergeant John van den Heuvel and Sally Pitts-Brown, chief executive of Pathways, which provides community-based mental health services, describe this death as an isolated incident”, Moyle said, “they make it sound as if it’s a one off when in fact incidents of this type are on the increase”.

“They appear to be isolated because they are dealt with, investigated and reported in isolation which gives the impression murders of this type are infrequent events”.

“This is often exacerbated by the lack of transparency following investigations and heavy suppression orders during court proceedings which make finding reliable, factual information relating to a case nigh on impossible” said Moyle. “I am concerned about John van den Heuvel’s comments considering the Police responded to over 22000 calls involving the mentally ill last year alone. Obviously only a small percentage of these end in death, however calls of this nature could hardly be referred to as isolated”.

Moyle would like to see a system similar to that used in the United Kingdom when investigating deaths such as Cathy Stewarts. The National Confidential Inquiry Into Suicide and Homicide investigates all murders and suicides involving those who have had some form of mental health intervention in the preceding twelve months.

“We urgently need something similar in this country” Moyle says, “so all investigations are carried out by one independent authority, not 20 individual District Health Boards which is currently the case”.

“We need to break this silo mentality so lessons can be learnt from past tragedies in order to prevent future ones”.

ends

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