The time passed between the death of Thomas Orchard in Exeter in October 2012 and the inquest conclusion just before Christmas 2023 is the longest I’ve known.  In years spent looking at death-after-contact inquests in policing and mental health, +13yrs is the most egregious of all the delays, but then a lot has had to […]

Read More Thomas’s Inquest

Here’s a situation for you:  someone arrested for a criminal offence is in custody at the point where an Approved Mental Health Professional and two Doctors decide the person should be ‘sectioned’ under the Mental Health Act 1983.  They complete the paperwork for admission and intend to take the person to hospital within an hour […]

Read More Conflict Avoidance

When I started writing this blog in 2011, I’d no idea how long it would last and wondered aloud where it would all go.  And here we are – wherever this is – at one thousand published posts.  As it feels like something of a meaningless milestone, I thought it might be worth marking by […]

Read More One Thousand Posts