'My son hears voices and is violent'

NICHOLAS TIMMINS

"He is worried about his son Simon. He fears his son may suffer the same fate as Martin Mursell. 'I am frightened for myself,' he says."

Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of Sane, is reading from the log of calls to the schizophrenia charity's helpline in the week after Martin Mursell, a paranoid schizophrenic, was sentenced for stabbing his stepfather 18 times in the back, eye, face and genitals before turning on his mother and almost killing her too.

"He hears voices. About half the time he is fine, but at others he is violent. He comes round for a meal every day but becomes abusive and threatening, telling his father to get out of the house because it is his." It was after a meal with his parents that Mursell turned on them, because, he later told police, he was overcome by "a strange fear" and believed they were looking at him oddly.

Simon is 31, a schizophrenic who became ill 18 months after his mother died when he was 16. He was discharged from hospital two years ago to a supported group home, but left after a year. "He won't talk to his social worker. He won't take his medicine. He won't go to the doctor or the day centre. He approaches strangers in the street, asking for money and gets abusive if refused. His father doesn't know what to do.

"Then there's Christine, from Wales - I'm changing the names and locations, the calls are confidential - her son lives with her. He's schizophrenic. He is becoming more violent. He recently attacked a neighbour. But they won't admit him to hospital. Whenever he's assessed, he has been calm. His mother says she can no longer trust anyone to believe how bad he can get."

The list goes on, drawn from the 1,000 calls a week that Sane receives. "There are families out there just not getting any help," Ms Wallace said.

She has campaigned for 10 years for better services for schizophrenics. She is not opposed to care in the community. "There are places where it works well. There are people for whom it can work," she says. "But it is so clearly not working for some of the most seriously mentally ill. Their numbers may be small, but some people do need haven or asylum care."

Her prescription is a moratorium on long-term care bed closures, a building programme to provide new acute beds and the introduction of more 24-hour staffed hostels - a policy the Department of Health has advocated since 1991 but on which, according to the Mental Health Act Commission, progress has been slow.