Out of the depths of despair

He was a school governor, friend of Cabinet Ministers, would-be Tory MP, yet he ended up in Broadmoor. Now he is a friend in high places to the mentally ill. By Jack O'Sullivan

You would expect to bump into Peter Thompson in the Carlton Club or another watering hole of the contented rich, nurtured on roast beef, spotted dick and plenty of claret. He has an Establishment ease that comes from hobnobbing with the peerage and having an address book filled with well-placed contacts who can sort out any problem with a phone call.

So it's hard to believe that he is Broadmoor's most successful ex-detainee, held there for four years, for attacking three women with a knife. And that, at one time, he pleaded to spend the rest of his life there.

Peter Thompson has led an extraordinary life. Examine one part of his CV - former head of public affairs for the right-wing pressure group Aims of Industry, school governor, friend of Cabinet ministers, Fellow of the Institute of Directors, recruit to the Conservative parliamentary candidates list - and you imagine a typical, well-heeled member of the G&T classes. Take a second look and you find a man who has suffered a severe breakdown and devoted his life to being a friend in high places to the mentally ill.

Now he is director of the highly respected Matthew Trust, the mental health charity he founded after release from Broadmoor. It is the last stop for those collapsing into the gutter, pushed between hospital, prison and potential suicide. The trust pays for anything from legal representation to psychiatric reports, clothing, counselling and accommodation. It has just raised its first pounds 1m and submitted to the Government a highly critical report on the financial plight of people with mental illness.

Diagnosed as a manic depressive, Mr Thompson has himself attempted suicide on several occasions - his mother killed herself in 1975, leaving a note saying simply, "Sorry Pete, sorry Pete." His story begins in poverty. He was beaten as an infant by his father, physically abused in a foster home, bullied at school, and tried to hang himself during National Service in the RAF. But the descent to Broadmoor began after he had become a public figure. After famously pleading in defence of a man who had stolen pounds 100 from him in 1958, he had led, with the help of Lord Longford, an influential public inquiry into the rehabilitation of offenders. The initiative led to major changes in the treatment of ex-offenders.

But his mental health was deteriorating - he was about to lose his public relations job, his partner left him, and he had just survived one drug overdose. " I ran away," he recalls. "I always had guns, pistols and knives. I used to shoot a 2.2 rifle at cars on motorways. I took a gun and some knives with me. I went driving. I felt safe in the car, as though no one could hurt me. I noticed three young lasses, all Danish in their teens, were trying to get a lift." He picked them up, but in his confusion became convinced that one of them was going to attack him. In the subsequent melee, he injured two of the girls with the knife. They ran and he rang the police to give himself up. "I had cut them," he recalls, "but not severely. The doctor said I was not stabbing them, but swirling the knife around. Of course I pleaded guilty."

He was sent to Broadmoor for four years, where he was chairman of the escape committee. "I was very depressed, as anyone would be who had had their whole life smashed up," he recalls, the emotion still raw 30 years on. "My psychiatrist said I was to treat Broadmoor as my Zimmer frame, that it was there to help me. And I remember him saying - and it still makes me weep - he said, `My dear son'. My father had never called me `My dear son'." At which point, he cries and can say no more.

On his release, Mr Thompson wrote Bound for Broadmoor, an acclaimed account detailing the hospital's then squalid facilities. He described instances of "Berkshire Belly" - vomiting and diarrhoea - breaking out as dozens of men shared the same commode. "By the time the last one used it, the thing was overflowing and the stench appalling; and it was not even possible to open a window, for security reasons, nor wash one's hands." The book led to outcry for reform.

Now 63, he has retired to run the trust full time. "I am aware of the depth of illness in others, because of the illness that I have suffered," he says. "I am not a specialist in mental illness, but when I see people who are ill there is a camaraderie, a knowing of each other's pain, past and present"n

Peter put me on my feet

Patricia Chambers is one of thousands who have been helped. Now 32, fit and attractive, she seems a peaceful, healthy woman. But five years ago, she was psychotic and violent. "I've been beaten up on a number of occasions by Patricia," recalls Mr Thompson.

"I was hearing voices," she says. "I thought I was in communication with God. So I thought I had to do what I was told to be obedient." She was arrested after committing an assault.

"I chased her through the courts," says Mr Thompson. "Both a psychiatrist and the court probation officer said that she was not ill. But it was obvious that she was sick and that if she was released on to the streets, she would be a threat to herself. I said I would buy her lunch if she would let me take her to see a psychiatrist at St George's hospital. She eventually agreed and he said she was clearly severely schizophrenic."

Ms Chambers recalls: "Peter got me somewhere to live, sorted out my court case, pleaded for me. Eventually they put me on probation. Peter put me on my feet.

"Since then I've had two relapses. Peter comes to the hospital and explains my case to the doctors. He has smoothed the way for me, made it a more comfortable experience for me in the mental health system. Once you have had a psychotic experience, people tend to think of you as a mad person, talking nonsense. It is good to have someone who can mediate for you. He understands completely the experience of being out of touch, locked up. When you're psychotic, you feel hostile to the world and when people shove you around it just makes things worse"n

The Matthew Trust can be contacted at PO Box 604, London SW6 3AG; tel 0171 736 5976.