Mental Health Homicide

Priti Patel Excerpts

Thursday 21st November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Emily Thornberry]

Mr Anabah’s first application was made only one year after sentencing, and each year the family face the prospect of yet another hearing. They are rightly outraged by this. They were also outraged when they learned that the purpose of the tribunal was simply to decide whether the offender was better.

The latest shocking development is that although the tribunal has so far refused to discharge Mr Anabah from hospital, he has managed to get escorted leave, allowing him out on to the streets, presumably of my constituency. It appears that he has had weekly leave between May and August, but the victim’s family were not notified. This is particularly worrying, because the victim’s mother still lives in my constituency. I am sure the Minister did not mean it, but I was misled on this point. He wrote to me on 13 June:

“In March of this year a request for permission for unescorted community leave was made by the Responsible Clinician. On behalf of the Secretary of State, officials in the Mental Health Casework Section refused permission for this leave on the grounds that Mr Anabah was not sufficiently engaged in his treatment plan and lacked insight into his illness, and that he posed a risk of abscond as a result of his immigration status and liability for deportation.”

We thought, therefore, that he was going to stay where he was. Instead, we learned that although he had not been out on unescorted leave, he had been out on escorted leave. That is wrong, and it is wrong that the family did not know it was happening.

Why should leave ever be appropriate in such a case? Surely hospital leave is intended to help patients shortly to be released. Why would a patient who has killed someone fewer than five years before be eligible for release, and how could a restricted foreign national patient with a recommendation for deportation also be eligible for release, or even be considered for release? The family do not understand that, and neither do my constituents.

Although Mr Anabah’s leave was suspended following my complaint, the Ilumoka family feel that it cannot be right that a man who killed their sister only five years ago is already permitted to be out in the community. They feel that changes should be made to how the criminal justice system works to ensure that any mentally disordered offender who kills cannot be released within only a few years of their crime.

The problem might well be the interpretation of section 45A of the Mental Health Act, which allows a judge to impose a hybrid hospital order/prison sentence, the scope of which was extended in 2008 to include all those with a mental disorder. It seems to me that this option should always be considered whenever the prosecution accepts a plea of guilty to manslaughter owing to diminished responsibility. Having read the judgment in this case, I am concerned that the judge might not have turned his mind to that section. Such an order would at least give a family some certainty that the person who killed their relative will not released in the near future if they make a speedy recovery from mental illness.

I have looked at the guidance for prosecutors of diminished responsibility manslaughter cases, and it seems that it is not as clear as it could be. The Minister knows it is the responsibility of prosecutors to give advice, if asked, to the judge about their sentencing powers. One would hope, therefore, that section 45A would have a prominent place in the guidance, but it does not. The guidance does not mention the possibility of a mixed order. Indeed, it refers to an earlier case when such an order was not an option. This must be changed. I recommend that reference be made to a more recent case, such as the Court of Appeal’s decision in the Cooper case in 2010. I simply suggest that we change the guidance to prosecutors.

However, it goes further than that, because judges also rely on guidelines from the Sentencing Council. Again, there are no sentencing guidelines specifically about this issue. No such cases are included in the Sentencing Council’s case compendium, which sets out sentencing options for manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility with reference to older cases, but not the latest cases. Therefore, the option of the mixed sentence is not foremost in judges’ minds when making decisions. I accept that additional guidelines from the Ministry of Justice would be available, but they are not in the main guide that a judge would have when sentencing an individual.

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

I have met the hon. Lady’s constituents, Yemi and her siblings, through my all-party group on victims and witnesses of crime when I published my recent report. Their case is distressing—indeed, it is absolutely harrowing—but it is worth putting it on record that it also shows the challenge we face in supporting victims in such cases. The system needs to support them when they go through such trauma and also give them clarity and certainty about sentencing and how the judgment is reached.

[Emily Thornberry]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I know that the family greatly appreciate the support she has given them and other victims through her all-party group. While we are putting matters on the record, it is only right to say that 90% of homicides are not perpetrated by people with mental illness. Indeed, the number of homicides perpetrated by people with mental illness is going down, as are all homicides. However, for the tiny minority of cases where the perpetrator is suffering from a mental illness, we need to ensure that the sentencing guidelines and the law are tight and clear, so that families such as the Ilumoka family do not face, frankly, the injustice and uncertainty that they are currently facing.

I would like to touch briefly on the broader issues raised by this case. It is clear that if Mr Anabah had not been mentally ill, he would have been given a life sentence for killing Abiodun Ilumoka and her unborn child, and when he reached the end of his sentence he would have been detained pending deportation, alongside other foreign nationals who had committed crimes. The disparity between a life sentence and deportation and escorted leave four years after sentencing is huge. I understand that other people who have killed while mentally ill have been freed in even shorter times. I can see why victims would feel that to be fundamentally unjust. The lack of information provided to victims about applications for hospital leave, coupled with the lack of opportunity for relatives to have an input into applications for release when cases come before the Mental Health Tribunal, must cause us all concern.

I appreciate that this is my personal view, but having had experience of such cases, I believe that judges should impose a minimum detention time in all cases where there is a homicide conviction. It appears that the power to impose a prison/hospital order already exists, but it needs to be more prominent, so that mentally ill offenders can have access to treatment and bereaved relatives can be provided with some certainty. Judges and prosecutors should be considering the victim when looking at sentencing. I hope that the Minister has taken on board the points I have raised today and that the family will see the changes they are campaigning for.