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Why are the police punishing the ill?
There are no ethical or clinical benefits from threatening or proceeding with legal measures against mental health patients, but with cuts to our services it is becoming all too common, writes RUTH HUNT

POPPY’S smile wit and frequent and funny use of expletives was something that her friends loved about her. A close friend said: “Poppy was beautiful inside and out and she often advocated for others in need.”

Despite that, it took a long time for Poppy to trust people, but one day she felt she needed to talk and even though she still wasn’t sure about her mental health team, she decided to sit down with her mental health social worker and a psychiatric nurse.

Over the next hour she disclosed that as a young child she had been abused and described in violent and graphic detail what she would like to do to her abuser if they ever crossed paths, though made it clear that in real life she would be too frightened to do anything at all.

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