Health experts criticised over killer care

Mental health experts have been criticised in a report on a paranoid schizophrenic who killed a fitness instructor months after he seriously assaulted a nurse.

Prosecutors decided not to bring charges against 32-year-old Sean Perry for the earlier attack.

An independent report into Perry's care criticised experts' failure to focus on the "risks he posed when unwell".

Perry had been a mental health patient at Springfield Hospital in Tooting, south London, but was discharged in June 2005.

His family warned repeatedly that he was refusing to take anti-psychotic drugs and urged doctors to readmit him.

But Perry remained in the community and on the evening of February 18, 2006 he killed Matthew Carter, 22, as he walked home from a friend's house.

He admitted manslaughter at the Old Bailey in 2006 and was detained indefinitely in Broadmoor Maximum Security Hospital.

The inquiry found that Perry was "known to be capable of great violence" and to present a "significant risk" to others when acutely psychotic.

But he was not referred for a forensic assessment because the community care staff looking after him believed this would have been of limited value - something the authors described as a "lost opportunity".

There was also an "over-reliance" on Perry's mother by health workers to monitor his progress despite her being "not adequately equipped" for this role.

The report, which was commissioned by NHS London, was also critical of the handling of the earlier attack by Perry on community psychiatric nurse Sanjaya Warnatilake in April 2005.

The authors said they were "concerned" that witness statements were only taken three months after the incident, which they noted was "particularly serious" and caused "acute injury".

They said the Crown Prosecution Service's failure to bring charges against Perry could have been a missed opportunity to tackle his problems.

"We found that a prosecution might have been beneficial for the treatment of SP (Sean Perry) for a number of reasons, including that it might have encouraged him to address his condition and engage with treatment," they wrote.

The report made 19 recommendations for the NHS trust, the local council and the community mental health team that looked after Perry.

© Independent Television News Limited 2008. All rights reserved.