The young man in the photo above is named David Fleet. On 16 September, 2019, at the age of 20, he was detained indefinitely at a secure psychiatric unit. With good reason - on 28 February that year, without any provocation, he repeatedly
stabbed a retired butcher, Lewis Stone (pictured below), 71 years old, out walking his dog. Mr Stone died of his wounds three months later.
Regular readers of this blog will be aware that the murder of innocent people by mental health patients is a topic which I have returned to a number of times. I haven't written about it for a while, but I knew it would happen again. All these murders have similar features: a psychotic mental patient randomly murders an unsuspecting victim in a public place; the killer pleads guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility; the killer is sent to a secure unit where he or she may, or may not, respond well to treatment. If he or she does respond well, then he or she may be released, perhaps to kill again. All these cases are horrific and disturbing. What is particularly disturbing about this case is that David Fleet,
according to Staffordshire Live, is already being allowed out on unaccompanied visits:
"... relatives of Mr Stone - who was holidaying in Borth near Aberystwyth when he was stabbed, dying three months later in hospital - say they have been horrified to learn Fleet has been allowed to leave the secure unit alone and without supervision".
Mr Stone's stepdaughter, Vicki Lindsay, has described this astonishing leniency towards Fleet as "a kick in the teeth". As Fleet was incarcerated a mere three years and seven months ago, this is highly understandable. No such privileges would be awarded to a murderer without "diminished responsibility" and rightly so. But, besides the totally understandable outrage of Mr Stone's family, there are other reasons to be disturbed at David Fleet's being granted unsupervised trips out.
Fleet grew up in Borth, Credigion. He was diagnosed autistic at the age of 15. He smoked cannabis and self-harmed so badly that he was prescribed anti-psychotic drugs. He was sectioned under the Mental Health Act in 2018, but (shade of the present) was allowed home for visits. During those visits, his mother, Sharon Lees, says that he was still buying cannabis and (ominously) buying knives.
Despite his mother's warnings to staff, David Fleet was released into home care after four months. Ten days after returning home, Fleet left home with a knife. Walking through the Welsh countryside, he encountered the unfortunate Lewis Stone, a man he had never met. The BBC comments here:
"Mr Stone, from Staffordshire, was walking his dog Jock along the bank of the River Leri while visiting his nearby holiday home which he and his wife had plans to retire to.
Fleet later told psychiatrists if he had not stabbed Mr Stone, the voices in his head "were going to kill him".
BBC Wales says it has seen a confidential report from three weeks before Fleet's release in which a doctor cautions against the release as Fleet had a worsening mental state and was a risk with knives. The BBC go on to say:
"Just days later, he was sent home without anyone updating his risk assessment and staff were meant to contact him the day before the attack, but did not because of their workload.
He also did not receive a dose of his anti-psychotic medication".
Please note: staffing of the Mental Health sector was a crucial factor here. Also note: Fleet is being allowed unsupervised visits once again, as he was in 2018. We can only hope that history does not repeat itself, but there is every reason to be concerned. Like Lewis Stone's family, I find Fleet's lenient treatment an outrage.
Manchester University researchers suggest that between 2010 and 2020 there were 5,876 homicide offenders in the UK, of which 610 (11%) were under the care of mental health services.
However, while there was a fall in the overall homicide rate in England and Wales since 2008, the percentage of murders carried out by schizophrenics actually rose.
"His (Fleet's) mother Sharon Lees is now calling for Hywel Dda University Health Board to issue a public apology to both her and the victim's family, after an unpublished report seen by BBC Wales Investigates suggested she had warned them over her son's mental state only three days before the incident".
I totally endorse this call for an apology by Sharon Lees. I hope that any such forthcoming apology will be more constructive and not simply a rehashing of the perfunctory bland expressions of sympathy that usually follow these killings. I further hope that David Fleet does not return to his murderous ways and slay more innocent people. I hope that I am not simply hoping against hope; previous experience warns against it.
The reasons why a person kills someone else are irrelevant to the fact that the murderer has chosen to kill another human being. I believe we let all murderers out too soon: as they have deprived another person of the entirety of the rest of their life, so they should lost a substantial chunk of their own - at least 25 years. I see no reason to make an exception for mental illness.
ReplyDeleteThe thug who murdered my ex-girlfriend was released after about 15 years in his early 50s with potentially several decades of free life ahead of him. At the same time, a little girl had lost her mother permanently, a mother similarly had lost her daughter, and loads of people had lost a friend.
The David Fleet case seems to have been seriously mishandled and those responsible should have been held responsible, but I doubt they were.
Killers - whether ruthless or mentally ill - kill people and the rest of us need protecting from them.