When Linda Morgan's son Joe Paraskeva was sectioned, he tried to escape from hospital and was given a prison sentence that could see him spend the rest of his life behind bars. His mother has launched a campaign, Justice for Joe, to highlight his case.
Amelia Gentleman
guardian.co.uk
By the time Joe Paraskeva started smashing his fist through the mirrors at his family home, saying he could no longer bear to look at his own face, his mother realised that he was having another serious mental health crisis and needed urgent medical help.
On 4 October last year, Linda Morgan accompanied her 20-year-old son to a secure unit within the adult psychiatric ward of a large London hospital where he was subsequently sectioned under the Mental Health Act. He had already spent seven months in an adolescent mental health unit when he was 17, where he was diagnosed and treated for bipolar affective disorder, but this was the first time he had been inside an adult unit and Morgan recalls that when she said goodbye, her son was very nervous at being left alone.
Two days later, frightened and disturbed, he tried to escape from the wing, attempting (unsuccessfully) to burn a hole in the doors by lighting his aerosol deodorant and firing the flame towards the lock. No one was hurt and only a couple of hundred pounds' worth of damage was caused, Morgan says. Paraskeva pleaded guilty to arson and on 5 April he was given an indeterminate sentence of imprisonment for public protection (IPP), with a minimum requirement of two years in prison but no maximum limit – which means he could, depending on his behaviour, be detained for life.
His mother cannot understand how a patient sectioned within a mental health ward and apparently seriously ill has been given such a severe punishment. Her son, who had no previous criminal convictions, offered to pay for whatever damage was caused when he pleaded guilty. She is horrified that within two days of voluntarily http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifadmitting himself to hospital on ghttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifrounds of mental ill health, he washttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif transferred first to a police cell, and then subsequently to prison. Paraskeva is serving his sentence at Chelmsford Young Offenders Institute, and although he has spent some time on the medical wing there, he is currently with other prisoners in the general section of the institution.
"I don't think that Joe should have been sent to prison at all after committing an offence under section in a psychiatric ward. He doesn't need punishment; he needs help," Morgan says. Confused and horrified by the speed with which her son was moved from being a patient to a prisoner, she has launched an online campaign, Justice for Joe.
To read more of this compelling story, click here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jun/01/mentally-ill-treated-like-criminals?INTCMP=SRCH
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