‘System failing mum of schizophrenic boy’

4:30pm Monday 11th December 2006

A 17-YEAR-OLD schizophrenic boy has been refused treatment because he would have to be "holding a knife to his mother's throat" before he could be taken into hospital, his mother claims.

The Walthamstow youth, whom we are calling Joe to protect his family's identity, was said to be "not ill enough to put into hospital" following an assessment by a consultant psychiatrist at Thorpe Coombe Hospital last week.

This was after he had smashed up clocks, a television and a radio in his mother's bedroom.

"He was upset because I went out. He doesn't like clocks. He says there are spirits sending messages to him through them," his mother said.

A spokesman for North East London Mental Health Trust, confirmed that the teenager had been seen by his psychiatrist.

She said his allocated key worker should pass on information such as whether the person is taking his medication to his consultant.

But his mother said: "I asked Who will I go to in an emergency?' and the psychiatrist replied: You will have to phone the police'."

Joe has been diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome and schizophrenia and was excluded from school at 14 for being violent towards other children.

According to his mother, who says she is scared to be left alone in the house with him, he stopped taking his medication six months ago because he he described them as mind-altering drugs. She said mentally he was very unstable, getting angry at "any little thing," such as her leaving the house, and "hearing spirits in his head."

He was admitted to Goodmayes adolescent outpatient unit, Brookside, for a nine-month treatment programme two years ago after he held a knife to his brother's throat.

According to a report published on Monday, 52 homicides are committed each year by mentally ill people receiving care in the community, and 90 per cent of those are directed at members of their own family.

In an interview with the Times, Marjorie Wallace, Chief Executive of Sane, a mental health charity, said: "Inquiry after inquiry has shown that a family's calls for help are ignored by staff until it is too late."