Jonty Bravery and a Recurring Theme

Readers of this blog, occasional or regular, will look at the title of this item and say:

 "Oh, no, he's at it again - banging on about violent mental health patients!". 

Indeed I am, and make no apology for doing so. The need to comment on this issue remains as strong as ever, even though I have made an effort over the last year or so to avoid the subject. The man in the picture above - Jonty Bravery - has brought home once again the need to return to the problem of violent psychiatric patients. Whatever his mental health problems may be, I shall stop naming him by his full name; there was no bravery in this youth's vile crime, so I shall refer to him as "JB".

As we know only too well, JB committed the heinous crime of tearing a six-year old French boy from his mother's arms and throwing him from the 10th floor of the Tate Modern on the 4th of August last year. After his arrest, said the BBC in December, he told the police: 

"I wanted to be on the news, who I am and why I did it, so when it is official no-one can say anything else."

It is nothing short of a miracle that JB's victim survived, albeit with life-changing injuries. He is still unable to stand, says the BBC now, but can open his left hand, and is saying his words one syllable at a time. We can only hope that he makes the best recovery possible. There is a Go Fund Me page to raise money for his family, found at:

https://uk.gofundme.com/f/medical-funds-for-tate-tragedy

When I have written about this issue previously, the cases examined have followed a similar pattern: a mental health patient has been released into the community to kill for the first, or even the second time. The mental health mandarins have expressed perfunctory condolences, "lessons have been learned" (we are told) and the victim's families are left to mourn the deaths of their loved ones. Then it happens again, somewhere else. This case has been different in that, thankfully, the victim has survived and that media scrutiny has been intense upon the care system that was supposedly looking after JB.

 We have seen, for the first time since I became interested in this matter, a whistleblower come forward to expose alleged deficiencies in the system that cares for these dangerous individuals.

For, if the whistleblowers are correct, JB was a very dangerous individual indeed. Incredibly, he lived in a flat in Northolt with a team of six carers, who were with him, in paired rotation, round the clock. His whistleblower carers have told the press that he was manipulative and violent; they were instructed not to say no to him in case he became aggressive. It is reported that his carers were unable to stop him from shoplifting when out on accompanied visits, and that he was already on bail for two previous assaults. It beggars belief that he was still being allowed out on unaccompanied trips.

I actually feel some sympathy for the carers, who were faced with the daily risk of assault from this unpredictable individual. I am amazed that JB was not confined to somewhere like Broadmoor anyway, as he was clearly capable of serious violence. And was it right that so many staff were tied up to cater for one patient? Had he been incarcerated, they could have been better deployed elsewhere.

Most concerning of all, as we know, is the fact that JB had spoken a year before about his plan to push someone - even a friend, if possible - from a high building. The whistleblower, "Ollie", as reported, made a tape of JB's plan. It is a chilling experience to listen to this tape; even more chilling to think that "Ollie" claims to have informed his supervisors of JB's plan, but that his employers, Spencer and Arlington, now claim to have no knowledge of any such report. 

Something went wrong somewhere, and, as Alison Holt says:

"A terrible sign of a broken system is how some experts will see the claims that Jonty Bravery's warning that he wanted to kill, went unheeded... His is a rare case, but some point to the wider pressures on the system that supports people with mental health issues, autism and learning disabilities in the community. "

Quite right - but we are left wondering: how many other JBs are there out there? Again, I have written about such people before, and I never cease to be amazed at how often they are not detected (or worse) before they kill or attack innocent members of the public.

"Worse", in this context, means that sometimes these murderous mental health patients are released into the community and kill again. Nicola Edgington is the prime example. If JB is so "difficult" and manipulative, he may well be pronounced "cured" one day and set free - perhaps to attack again.

For me, this case will resonate for a long time. The Tate Modern is one of my favourite places to visit in London, but, from now on, I will never be able to visit without thinking of one deranged individual, a falling child and a mother's primal scream.