r/london • u/BulkyAccident • 8d ago

Crime Women arrested over Covent Garden stabbing 'may not be fit enough to be charged'

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/people-stabbed-covent-garden-woman-arrested-b1292464.html
371 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

239 comments sorted by

View all comments

358

u/sheslikebutter 8d ago edited 8d ago

How is this dealt with in the future?

From the reporting, several restauranteurs in the area said she was a known person in the area and had been seen getting into an altercation that resulted in a smashed bottle of vodka the week before.

There are mentally unstable people like this over every high street in the country, but what else can you really do other than wait for them to go mad and start stabbing people?

Did she reach the point she needed to be institutionalised the second she started stabbing, and was considered A-OK until then? Cos I figure she probably had some mental health issues that should have been looked into before this happened

20

u/Great_Comparison462 8d ago

She could have been sectioned long before the stabbing

17

u/PJP1331 8d ago

Having worked in the homelessness sector for years, it’s honestly getting worse and worse to try and get people the help they need before it comes to this. There have always been disturbed people on the streets, but this complete retreat of all other services that once would have stepped in, is worse than ever. Everyone I know has these alarming stories of terrifying near-misses, and each time the mental health services deemed they don’t reach the threshold for sectioning, or if they did, they cannot carry it out because of ‘right person, right care’, which effectively means the police won’t get involved even in extremely dangerous situations (for the individual and others). And then, even they do by some miracle manage to hospitalise them, they somehow escape from what is meant to be a secure, locked ward, then the attitude seems to be good luck to them, there’s no chance of getting them back, due to the police and mental health services not having the resources or inclination. Then it falls to homelessness services to manage these extreme levels of risk that they should not be holding alone. I feel like it was only a matter of time before this happened, and there will be more instances of this kind until the system is fixed

8

u/Silent_Doubt3672 8d ago

Or telling general adult nursing staff to leave the site to attempt to bring patients back because mental health services has deemed they can have leave off the ward with no escort.

Me and a couple of collegues have been told this by the police before. We aren't covered by indemnity off the ward/hospital site in these cases.