Twenty Nineteen

The forthcoming year is the sixtieth birthday of the first piece of modern mental health legislation – the Mental Health Act 1959. It’s worth noting this milestone, in my opinion, because sixty years on we are still struggling to think about how we give effect in the real world to some of its requirements. Section […]

Stress-Testing Contingencies

About a decade ago, I was pottering about as the duty inspector in south Birmingham when a full-scale police mobilisation of public order units was ordered. This involves having to get together a sergeant and seven constables on to van, all of them ‘level two trained’ in public order tactics – riot police, to you […]

Justice Delayed, not Denied

On August 3rd 2018, Kaylsey Smithen was convicted of the manslaughter of his 46yr old mother, Janice, which took place in Birmingham more than six years earlier. This short post is a little bit of speculation on my part, based only on media reports of the legal process, but which seeks to outline why such […]