http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... l&offset=0A young mental health worker was stabbed to death with four knives by a patient who had been freed from a psychiatric hospital after trying to murder the Queen.
Ashleigh Ewing, 22, was on a routine visit to the home of Ronald Dixon, a paranoid schizophrenic, when he started a frenzied attack that left her with 39 separate stab wounds.
Dixon, 35, thought that he was the son of Henry VIII and had been arrested at Buckingham Palace four months earlier when he told police that he wanted to see his mother — the Queen — and planned to kill her.
He was treated at a psychiatric hospital after his bungled assassination attempt in January last year but by May he had been allowed to return to his rented home in Heaton, Newcastle upon Tyne.
The Metropolitan Police had taken his threats on the Queen’s life seriously enough to order checks on his whereabouts before she paid a royal visit to the North East of England in April of that year.
Ms Ewing, who was sent to his flat to deliver a letter, was six months into her first full-time job after graduating from the University of Northumbria with a 2:1 in psychology.
She was employed as a support worker by a charity, Mental Health Matters, which provides community services to clients with psychiatric problems and managed the property where Dixon was living.
Newcastle Crown Court was told that Dixon, who called himself King Ron, had been refusing to take anti-psychotic drugs, was drinking alcohol and had become stressed by a series of mounting debts.
He was showing signs of a relapse into a psychotic state. The letter that Ms Ewing took to him confirmed that he had agreed to pay compensation for a telephone that he had damaged.
Paul Sloan, QC, prosecuting, told the court that “it would seem the content of the letter played some part in triggering the frantic knife attack which the defendant launched on Ashleigh Ewing”.
He said that forensic examinations later established that the assault began in the sitting room, where Ms Ewing, from Hebburn, South Tyneside, had been sitting in an armchair.
“There was a struggle during which items were knocked over and Ashleigh lost an earring. She then made her way to the kitchen, bleeding freely from knife wounds.
“She remained upright for a period, still trying to fend off knife blows. She eventually fell to the floor in the kitchen, where the defendant continued his attack, sitting astride Ashleigh while stabbing her in the chest and inflicting a deep wound to her neck.” Mr Sloan said that Dixon had used four knives in total. As one broke, he would arm himself with a replacement. The broken blade of one knife was found in one of Ms Ewing’s chest wounds.
When he had finished, Dixon, who was given a two-year probation order after attacking his sleeping parents with a hammer in 1994, walked to a local police station and announced that a woman was lying dead in his home.
During subsequent police interviews, he responded to most questions with a one-word reply, “King”. Dixon, who was originally from Sunderland, was charged with murder but the prosecution accepted his plea of guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsiblility.
Judge David Hodson ordered that he should be detained infinitely in a secure hospital. He told Dixon that his “frenzied and sustained knife attack” had cut short the life of “an active, intelligent young woman with enormous potential”.
“She was just embarking on a life of doing good for others and you ended that. In the months leading up to your attack on Ms Ewing there were a number of indicators which we can now see with hindsight were building up inexorably to the explosion of violence that occurred on that tragic meeting.” The judge said that the circumstances of the case demanded “an independent and thorough investigation” now that the criminal prosecution had been completed.
Ms Ewing’s parents, Aileen and Jeff Ewing, said in a statement that their daughter was still in her probationary period as a support worker. Her dream had been “to make a difference in the world”. They demanded to know why she had been asked to pay an unaccompanied visit to a client “who was known to have a violent past” and why Dixon’s medical care had not been monitored more closely.
Patrick Cosgrove, QC, Dixon’s barrister, also questioned why the inexperienced Miss Ewing had been sent to see his client alone.
“If responsible persons had taken rational decisions at the crucial time, Miss Ewing would never have been put in the situation of grave risk and perhaps Mr Dixon would not have been at liberty to commit the crime,” he said.
“On May 19, when he was severely ill and when so many of his warning lights were flashing, she was allowed to go alone to his home armed with a letter demanding payments for debts owed. He didn’t have an opportunity to kill the Queen but he had an opportunity to kill Miss Ewing.”
A Health and Safety Executive investigation into Miss Ewing’s death is awaiting publication. An independent inquiry into Dixon’s healthcare and treatment has been ordered by the North East Strategic Health Authority.
Skitsofreenikko murhasi mielenterveystyöntekijän Englannissa
Skitsofreenikko murhasi mielenterveystyöntekijän Englannissa
I´m the weirdo in your bedroom
and I can see you in the dark
and I can see you in the dark
Näköjään "systeemi" tökkii jossain muuallakin.Ihan "järkevältä" tuntuu, että mies kuvitteli olevansa sen vanhan pukin Henrik VIII:n poika ja menee tapaamaan "äitiään" Elisabeth II:sta, jonka haluaa tappaa.Kaikista typerin teko oli tietenkin lähettää 22-vuotias nuori nainen yksin tapaamaan tämänkaltaista henkilöä.Tulos: 39 puukoniskua ja kuolema...En edes usko, että joku saa potkut tämän törttöilyn takia...
Suomessakin on näitä tapahtunut. Joskus 1998-1999 mielisairaalan potilas tappoi hoitajan mikkeliläisessä mielisairaalassa. Taisi puukottaa hoitajaa takaapäin. Tämän uhrin vanhemmat olivat myöhemmin Poliisi TV:ssäkin, muistaakseni aiheena oli uhrien omaisten asema/jaksaminen tai muu vastaava. En muista millaisen tuomion tekijä sai. Toivottavasti muistin jutun oikein, mutta suunnilleen näin se meni.
