Broadmoor (Discharged Patients)

Oral Answers to Questions — Home Department – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 9 November 1972.

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Photo of Nicholas Winterton Nicholas Winterton , Macclesfield 12:00, 9 November 1972

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many patients discharged from Broad-moor or similar establishments have committed further acts of violence.

Photo of Mr Mark Carlisle Mr Mark Carlisle , Runcorn

I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given to his similar Question on 26th October. I cannot add to the information that he has been sent.—[Vol. 843, c. 362.]

Photo of Nicholas Winterton Nicholas Winterton , Macclesfield

I thank my hon. and learned Friend for the figures and statistics given in his reply to my original Question. Is he not prepared to have these figures put in the OFFICIAL REPORT, so that the public at large can appreciate the situation? Is my hon. and learned Friend aware that with very little effort I have discovered five such cases, in which at least two people have died? Does my hon. and learned Friend feel that the interests of the general public are safeguarded by the somewhat liberal approach that is adopted to these unfortunate people?

Photo of Mr Mark Carlisle Mr Mark Carlisle , Runcorn

Of course I am prepared to give any information I can to the House, but that information could not be complete, as my hon. Friend knows. What I was able to tell him was that 642 restricted persons were discharged in 1966 and 1967, of whom six had since been convicted of offences involving violence.

On the wider point, I assure my hon. Friend that the greatest care is taken before anyone is conditionally discharged from a special security hospital, but in the end one has to act on the advice of the doctors and the best advice that one can obtain. We cannot realistically be asked to hold people in special hospitals against medical advice merely because an unfortunate occurrence occasionally takes place. I ask my hon. Friend to accept that all these things are considered extremely carefully.

Photo of Mr Arthur Davidson Mr Arthur Davidson , Accrington

Is not the most important consideration of all to ensure that the after-care facilities for those who are released are much improved and that no one—as in a recent well-known case—is sent to some seedy room without help or supervision from anyone so that it is inevitable that at some time or other he will get into trouble? Will the hon. and learned Gentleman increase the after-care facilities?

Photo of Mr Mark Carlisle Mr Mark Carlisle , Runcorn

I agree that these facilities are very important. After the case to which the hon. Gentleman has referred, my right hon. Friend the Member for Barnet (Mr. Maudling) called for an inquiry, as a result of which certain alterations were made in the process of discharging, including the requirement of a second doctor's opinion. The whole of the safeguards we then imposed are at the moment being reviewed by an independent committee under Sir Carl Aarvold, whose report we are shortly awaiting.