Trevor Joyce, 36, Stabbed Justin Skrebowski, 61, In Poundland

[Abroad]

A mental health patient who fatally stabbed a man in a Poundland store has been sentenced to life imprisonment.

Trevor Joyce, 36, attacked Justin Skrebowski with a knife from the store in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in December.

Joyce had been charged with murder, but admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

Mr Skrebowski's family has criticised "blunders, missed opportunities and failed procedures" in Joyce's treatment.

The Old Bailey sentencing hearing was told Joyce, a schizophrenic drug addict, had taken a large knife and carving fork from an aisle at the Bury Street store and knifed Mr Skrebowski in the back on 7 December.

The 61-year-old antiques dealer had been buying balloons for his wife's birthday.

After the hearing, a statement released on behalf of Mr Skrebowski's family criticised Joyce's treatment.

"Given what was known by the authorities of the state of Joyce's mind at the time, it is incomprehensible to us that he was left at large in the community," it read.

"Justin died on his wife's birthday as a direct result of the minimally-supervised release of a very sick man."

Tracey Johnson-Brown of Thames and Chiltern Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said: "The witnesses were utterly unprepared for what they saw, some of them acted courageously in their efforts to save Justin's life and detain Joyce despite the obvious risks to themselves."

The court heard Joyce had a long history of drug abuse which made his schizophrenia symptoms worse.

He was first diagnosed in 2003 and was prescribed anti-psychotic drugs.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-36460592

 

[JackBurton]

The 61-year-old antiques dealer had been buying balloons for his wife's birthday.

Balloons? The fuck? Was she fucking 12?

Life in prison is what, 10-15 years in mary ass pussy England?

I'm sorry, i shouldn't bash on that nations gov't too much, they did opt to remove themselves from Europe. Very American of them, if only they shared our disdain for murderers and rapists too.

 

[Sejanus]

This is why we need mental health institutions....insane asylums if you will...again.
Put these people in places they are safe, cared for medicated and can't harm anyone.
Too many bad things are being done at the hands of the mentally ill and putting them in prison after the fact is not working nor helpful.

 

[sarahdownunder]

This is why we need mental health institutions....insane asylums if you will...again.
Put these people in places they are safe, cared for medicated and can't harm anyone.
Too many bad things are being done at the hands of the mentally ill and putting them in prison after the fact is not working nor helpful.

Well said.

We still cannot cure these mental illnesses. And treatment is only effective whilst the patient is doing the right thing, making the right choices and staying on the right medication.

If they are a potential menace to society, then yes, we need sanitarium's back. Its crazy that we rely on people with extremely serious mental health conditions, to be actively responsible for their own care and medication. That's pretty fucking pointless.

And if its mental illness caused by drug abuse, like the asshole in this story - I have very little empathy to be frank - and since he clearly can't control his illegal drug use, and he apparently cannot be accountable for taking the right meds - then he should be locked the fuck up, indefinitely.

The victim buying balloons - his human right to not be stabbed to death with a knife and CARVING FORK FFS by a raving junkie lunatic in public, by far and away trumps the raving junkie lunatic's rights to freedom and independence and individual agency.

 

[McDanel]

I moved to California just after Governor Reagan started closing the hospitals as a cost cutting measure. The gap in housing was to be filled by a cottage industry in halfway homes, all this veiled as concern in reintegrating the mentally ill into society. Oddly enough, neighborhoods opposed, and nowhere near enough people were interested in this adventure. The patients wound up in residential hotels, and soon the most incapable of caring for themselves were homeless.

I worked in one of those hotels, and could not believe what they had loosed to live among us. When Reagan rose to President, the release of responsibility for the mentally ill became general.

I get the intent, because the excesses of mental hospitals such as portrayed in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest were real. Yet I didn't anticipate hearing a tenant whose room I'd just cleaned debate my murder in two different voices. I later discovered she had killed before. Seriously, what in God's name was the release criteria?

 

[Abroad]

I didn't anticipate hearing a tenant whose room I'd just cleaned debate my murder in two different voices. I later discovered she had killed before.

Thank goodness the jury was still out on you......

 

[Sejanus]

I didn't anticipate hearing a tenant whose room I'd just cleaned debate my murder in two different voices. I later discovered she had killed before. Seriously, what in God's name was the release criteria?

I am glad you are alive to share the story.
All too often these episodes have much worse outcomes.

Hopefully the day will come when government(s) will understand the will of the people to restore sanatariums is a move for the betterment of everyone and not a means to punish or victimize the mentally ill.

 

[McDanel]

The whole scheme was to save money by eliminating unnecessary government oversight, but no money is saved at all when you consider the judicial, penal, and social costs.

One thing that needs to be addressed is the 72 hour psychiatric hold. In Florida is called the Baker Act, in California it's 5150, every state has one. If your mental condition stabilizes under medication during those 72 hours, you are simply released with a prescription, and no oversight. That's exactly what happened with the Virginia Tech shooter. Not even parents can get help for their unstable adult child, such as the guy that shot Gifford, or the Batman movie shooter, the Sandy Hook killer, or the gal poisoning her family whose mother was arrested for abandoning her dangerous daughter at a mental hospital.