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Authors: Paul Britton
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had set fire to a shopping centre; a twenty-one-year-old who had tried to cut his father’s throat; a man who believed his young daughter was the devil’s child and thought he had to mutilate her eyes and body before strangling her; and another man with sadistic fantasies who tied up his former girlfriend, tortured and then killed her.
Such people had gone through the legal process, been convicted or detained under the Mental Health Act. Some of them had been sent to prison or a secure hospital such as Rampton in Nottinghamshire. Later they were transferred to Arnold Lodge for further specialist treatment on their way back to the community. It became our decision whether they still posed a risk to society or not, although some patients with particularly violent histories could only be released with the consent of the Home Secretary.
In general, if offenders were considered a grave and immediate risk but still treatable they were sent to a high security hospital. We took people who were grave risks or immediate risks but not both. The logic was that an escaped resident might be very dangerous but only in very particular circumstances, or vice versa, they might be an immediate risk but not a serious danger to the community.
Many of the patients were sent to Arnold Lodge directly by the courts, providing they met the risk management requirements and their psychological difficulties were treatable within the unit’s timescale. Others came to us from normal prisons, having developed problems while incarcerated. At the same time there were outpatient clinics for offenders and crime victims. These tended to be referrals by local doctors, occasionally solicitors and more often from clinical psychologists working in the NHS who didn’t have the inclination to take would-be axe murderers into their care.
My area of responsibility was for the whole of Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Lincolnshire and South Yorkshire - an area of roughly 1,000 square miles. For the first few months, until I filled the posts around me, I was the forensic psychology service for a population of over five million. It would take me two hours to drive to Barnsley, or to Lincoln. Then I’d meet a local GP, probation officer, or psychologist (getting to know my referral sources) and then be on the road again.
Nothing could have prepared me for how relentlessly grim it proved to be. Each day brought disbelief and sadness until my growing professional carapace became strong enough to protect me from even the worst details. Many perpetrators had histories which revealed that they, too, were victims who had suffered abuse, neglect or violence in their formative years. If I was to help them, I had to understand what had happened and why.
Nearly three months into my new job, on 22 November, I had a phone call from a local journalist on the Leicester Mercury. He asked me if I could tell him the psychological characteristics of the person who killed Lynda Mann and Dawn Ashworth.
‘There’s someone in custody,’ I said.
‘Haven’t you heard the news? He’s been freed. It’s this new blood test - genetic fingerprinting.’
Slightly taken aback, I told him that I couldn’t comment. I’d never heard of genetic fingerprinting or DNA tests. Remarkably, the process had been discovered only a few miles from my office, at Leicester University by Dr Alec Jeffreys, a young scientist who had been investigating the possibility of examining the genetic differences between people by isolating their DNA. Every human cell contains the blueprint of the entire human body carried as coded information in the form of DNA (deoxyribonu-cleic acid) arranged into groups called genes. Since genes govern heredity, Jeffreys reasoned that if he could isolate DNA material from a cell and present it as an image it would be individually specific. The only people on earth with identical DNA maps would be identical twins.
The technology had enormous possibilities in
Such people had gone through the legal process, been convicted or detained under the Mental Health Act. Some of them had been sent to prison or a secure hospital such as Rampton in Nottinghamshire. Later they were transferred to Arnold Lodge for further specialist treatment on their way back to the community. It became our decision whether they still posed a risk to society or not, although some patients with particularly violent histories could only be released with the consent of the Home Secretary.
In general, if offenders were considered a grave and immediate risk but still treatable they were sent to a high security hospital. We took people who were grave risks or immediate risks but not both. The logic was that an escaped resident might be very dangerous but only in very particular circumstances, or vice versa, they might be an immediate risk but not a serious danger to the community.
Many of the patients were sent to Arnold Lodge directly by the courts, providing they met the risk management requirements and their psychological difficulties were treatable within the unit’s timescale. Others came to us from normal prisons, having developed problems while incarcerated. At the same time there were outpatient clinics for offenders and crime victims. These tended to be referrals by local doctors, occasionally solicitors and more often from clinical psychologists working in the NHS who didn’t have the inclination to take would-be axe murderers into their care.
My area of responsibility was for the whole of Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Lincolnshire and South Yorkshire - an area of roughly 1,000 square miles. For the first few months, until I filled the posts around me, I was the forensic psychology service for a population of over five million. It would take me two hours to drive to Barnsley, or to Lincoln. Then I’d meet a local GP, probation officer, or psychologist (getting to know my referral sources) and then be on the road again.
Nothing could have prepared me for how relentlessly grim it proved to be. Each day brought disbelief and sadness until my growing professional carapace became strong enough to protect me from even the worst details. Many perpetrators had histories which revealed that they, too, were victims who had suffered abuse, neglect or violence in their formative years. If I was to help them, I had to understand what had happened and why.
Nearly three months into my new job, on 22 November, I had a phone call from a local journalist on the Leicester Mercury. He asked me if I could tell him the psychological characteristics of the person who killed Lynda Mann and Dawn Ashworth.
‘There’s someone in custody,’ I said.
‘Haven’t you heard the news? He’s been freed. It’s this new blood test - genetic fingerprinting.’
Slightly taken aback, I told him that I couldn’t comment. I’d never heard of genetic fingerprinting or DNA tests. Remarkably, the process had been discovered only a few miles from my office, at Leicester University by Dr Alec Jeffreys, a young scientist who had been investigating the possibility of examining the genetic differences between people by isolating their DNA. Every human cell contains the blueprint of the entire human body carried as coded information in the form of DNA (deoxyribonu-cleic acid) arranged into groups called genes. Since genes govern heredity, Jeffreys reasoned that if he could isolate DNA material from a cell and present it as an image it would be individually specific. The only people on earth with identical DNA maps would be identical twins.
The technology had enormous possibilities in
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