Skip to main content
NEU Senior Regional Support Officer
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.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
TRAILBLAZING RESEARCH: Dr Aggrey Burke in 2022; Jamaican immigrants met by the Colonial Office officials as they disembark from the Empire Windrush one in four will commit suicide / Windrush pic: Whispyhistory/CC
Obituary / 31 December 2025
31 December 2025

1943-2025: How one man’s unfinished work reveals the lethal lie of ‘colour-blind’ medicine

Britain’s biggest hunger strike in decades – and the media won’t touch it
Features / 4 December 2025
4 December 2025

As Palestine Action prisoners go weeks without food, alleging dangerous neglect and detention without trial, campaigners warn that a near-total media blackout is hiding a crisis that could turn fatal – and fuel a growing wave of public anger. ELIZABETH SHORT reports

Why we need the return of women’s centres
Features / 6 October 2025
6 October 2025

In the face of funding cuts, closures and a shift into women’s centres providing criminal justice-only services rather than a holistic approach, RUTH HUNT urges women to protect existing resources, volunteer and build new networks of support

CONTROVERSY: A court artist sketch of Nicholas Johnson KC crossexamining nurse Lucy Letby at Manchester Crown Court, May 18 2023
Features / 14 September 2025
14 September 2025

Former judge ANSELM ELDERGILL examines the details and controversy of Lucy Letby’s trial and appeal in the context of famous historical wrongful convictions that prove both the justice system and legal activists make errors