Darren Harkin escape - is it fair to blame the NAS?

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/feb/0 ... ntalhealth

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7604685.stm

http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/news/Men ... ticle.html

Darren Harkin who has Aspergers and schitzophrenia, escaped from the Hayes Hospital, which is run by the NAS after being transfered from a secure enviroment he was sentenced to after brutaly killing his young stepbrother. It's claimed that he was allowed to watch porn and horror movies and made sexual advances to staff. He was classed as "low risk" and moved to the low security hospital. He then escaped and within 24 hours of being on the loose he raped a 14 year old girl at knifepoint.

The hospital did not contact police for 30 minutes after finding him gone, then when they did they told them he posed no risk to the public.

So, do we blame the National Autistic Society for not making sure he did not abscond? Or do we blame the system that allowed him to be moved to low security in the first place? I would go for the latter, the Hayes is probably a very good place for the right types of people and I think it was very unfair to expect the NAS to take on such a dangerous individual.

He never should have been sent there in the first place, it's typical of the government. They make a mistake and then blame it on someone else. He defintely should not have been in a low security facility, I think they had no idea what to do with him so they just dumped on the NAS and made him someone else's problem.

All the anger, including that of the girl's family, is aimed at the NAS. I think they should be looking higher than the NAS though. They had to deal with an impossible situation. It was the system that deemed him low risk, not the NAS. They had a duty to take him on because of his AS, it was a very harsh and unfair thing to do to the only organisation in the country that recognises Autism and champions our rights on a wide scale.

I think the judge was wrong to blast the NAS, he works in one of the most responsable jobs in law and should know how f****d the system is. It's like shooting the messenger.

Brown and his merry men are the ones they need to be questioning. The people who make the mental health act in the first place, which needs a serious overhaul, are the ones responsable in my eyes.

He wasn't placed in a secure unit for watching horror films and porn, I imagine. The crux of the issue here is not his daily viewing material at all. He can watch as much porn as he likes and it harm none, because he would be in a SECURE UNIT. Its the fact that they moved him anywhere he was not secure. Focusing on the horror/porn film part is avoiding the problem. Thousands, if not millions.. or billions even.. watch Porn and horror films on a daily basis. Most of them are not schizoid proto-rapists, and will completely fail to ever sexually assault anyone because they are not mentally impaired, or completely unbalanced.

The moral of the story.. and it always has been.. is DO NOT LET DANGEROUS NUTTERS OUT ON THEIR OWN.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6203256.stm

Pertinent quotes:

"on average, one person a week dies at the hand of a mentally ill patient - almost a third of who had been rated as a low risk."

"249 people have been killed by psychiatric patients released into the community over the last five years."

"29% of patients who committed homicide had seen mental health services in the previous week."

Or how about samples?

http://www.birminghammail.net/news/top- ... -15539355/ <Paranoid schizophrenic kills policeman.. considered low risk.

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpoo ... -14410972/ < schizophrenic kills two women, also considered low risk.

And thats on the first google page alone. Porn and horror films do not cause killings. NUTTERS DO.

But they should have known about his mindset though and how that kind of veiwing might have spured his actions on. I dunno.

Or satiated his worst desires.....

While I agree that no movie or game can MAKE someone do these things, certain types of schitzophrenia, specialy when coupled with an ASD, make it very hard for the person to pull fact from fiction. What I do find a lot more disturbing on the NAS's part is how they did not tell the police he was a baby killer, they told them the only risk he may be is that he might neglect himself.

Further to this story, and the numerous cases I pointed out....

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-New ... 1229?f=rss

ANOTHER ONE.

When will they learn?

The blame lies with one person alone- the psychopath who chose to commit the crime.

Magliabechi.

I believe everyone involved in this screwed up in many many many ways.