Unfitness to Plead Consultation Responses - Law Commission ...

-----Original Message-----
From: Bremer, Zoe
Sent: 05 May 2011 15:47
To:
Subject: CP197 Unfitness to Plead
Dear
I am writing in response to your Consultation Paper. I was secretary to the head of healthcare
at HMP Pentonville a few years ago and would like to add my concerns.
1. Magistrates seem to have little knowledge of the length of time required to prepare a
psychiatric report. I had to contact the Clerk of the Court in many cases to ask for extra time.
It may cost more money to keep inmates on remand for longer but the result should be more
accurate reports as to each person's fitness to plead. It can also help to identify remand
prisoners of low intelligence who should be under the care of a hospital for people with
learning disabilities. As a general rule, at least a month, preferably six weeks, would be an
appropriate length of time for an inmate to be studied for the purposes of a psychiatric report.
Often the visiting psychiatrist is given only a fortnight;
2. It would help if more police surgeons were recruited from physicians with a background in
psychiatry so as to minimise the risk of vulnerable prisoners failing to be remanded for
psychiatric reports;
3. There needs to be a much greater emphasis on psychiatric evaluation for all prisoners
accused of violent crimes, whatever their age. This would help to keep those who are
mentally ill out of the prison system and get them into appropriate hospitals.
I would like to point out that, although it is estimated that around 60% of prisoners have some
kind of psychological problem, about 90% of the work of prison medical officers is of a
psychiatric nature.
On the positive side, I always found visiting doctors from Rampton very efficient in coming to
assess possible patients for transfer, which is more than can be said for NHS Catchment
Area psychiatrists, who seem to have all manner of excuses not to come and assess inmates,
even though, legally speaking, even if they deem them in need of hospital care, they only
have to find them a suitable bed somewhere in the UK, not necessarily in their own hospital.
Yours sincerely,
Zoe Bremer