The 'home alone' family must not be left alone

Mrs Parker and her son are now likely to receive not criminal charges but practical, expert help

There is surely, in the sad story of "home alone" Rufus Polak,and his depressed mother Jill Parker, a happy beginning of some sort. As beginnings go, it is perhaps not the most auspicious. This little mother-and-son family was until a few days ago an isolated family, frozen in bereavement, with the child clearly quite used to feeling responsibilities of care for the parent that he should not have been burdened with.

Now, everyone knows their business, because things became so bad in this little unit that their situation became extremely unusual and newsworthy. It emerged late last week that 12-year-old Rufus had been abandoned by his mother and left to look after himself for what might, had police not been alerted by a work colleague, have been an indefinite period.

A search for Ms Parker was initiated when it emerged that she had not been at home when her son got up on the morning of 8 December. Rufus had fed himself, left notes for the milkman and turned up at school under his own steam. When friends visited, he explained his mother's absence by saying she was busy upstairs. After his plight was discovered, he moved in with family friends, under the auspices of the social services department of the London borough of Wandsworth .

The assistant manager of a hotel not far from their home recognised Ms Parker from pictures in the papers and alerted the police that she was a guest in his establishment. By this time it had emerged that Ms Parker always found it particularly difficult to cope at this time of year, as her husband had died at Christmas three years before, followed shortly by her mother. By Sunday night, when police arrested Ms Parker on suspicion of neglect, it was already clear that she was vulnerable rather than straightforwardly irresponsible. It is reported that she said to the police: "Look, I am very frightened." The police replied: "We are here to help you."

The great thing is that the police will be able to put Ms Parker in touch with just the sort of help she needs. The bad news is that neither mother nor son felt that there was anyone they could turn to before this awful crisis. There is not enough information to say exactly why this was so in the case of Ms Parker and her son. But it is worth considering why it is that not just Ms Parker but many others feel fear of, rather than trust in, the institutions that exist to help us.

It is certain that Rufus, who has proved himself a brave and resourceful child, was motivated by a great fear. Marjorie Wallace, of the mental health charity Sane, explained to a newspaper yesterday that he is by no means the only one.

"The fear of the loss of the parent and the home is what drives the children to keep up appearances and not tell anyone," she said. "Children are loyal to their parents. They love them. They realise more than anyone that illness is making their mother or father like they are." But Ms Parker's desperate and reckless actions were surely motivated by fear as well. On previous occasions when depression had become too much, she had checked into hospital and made provision for her son. For some reason, she did not feel she could do this again.

But whatever her reasons, and however disordered her thought processes, Ms Parker's worries cannot have been assuaged by the status of mental health difficulties in our society. There is a real and terrifying divide in our attitudes to mental health problems.

Though today there is a deeper and wider understanding of mental health problems, the upshot of this does not seem to be more confidence in seeking help and sharing those difficulties. On the contrary, despite the sympathetic help that is available, there seems a greater stigma attached to mental health problems, and a greater reluctance to alert the dreaded "authorities" to their existence, than ever.

A good part of this fear is simply a straightforward result of poor provision, with people distrustful of a health system that can offer pills now, counselling on a waiting list and residential care, much of it distressing to its recipients, as a last resort. Since the introduction of care in the community, a perception that only the seriously disturbed need residential treatment has sprung up. But much of the fear, I believe, comes as a result of the political discourse around mental health issues – and many others as well – whereby government has become fearful of being seen as "soft" on anything. The mental health debate that has dominated the agenda for several years, has centred on the Government's wish to "shake up" mental health services with a Bill that is horrifying in its attempt to control and coerce.

Much attention has been paid this year to the Steven Spielberg film Minority Report. Based on a Philip K Dick story, the movie posits a future in which psychics can see future crimes, allowing the police to round up prospective criminals before their pernicious acts have been committed. The flaw in the scheme comes because there is always the possibility of a different future to the one the "pre-cogs" have seen.

Yet while such moral problems are presented as being something for humans to wrestle with in a fictional future, and an entertaining present, one thing about this supposedly theoretical debate is terribly striking. The Government's desire to section people whose mental state leads to the belief that they may be a risk to the public, is surely more authoritarian, with less justification, than this science fiction fantasy.

Years of strident opposition has ensured, thank goodness, that the Bill was not mentioned in the Queen's speech this year, and has therefore dropped off the parliamentary timetable, in the short-term at least. Nevertheless, a huge amount of damage has already been done. For the public, a picture has been painted that shows mental illness as a direct threat, with potential axe-murderers walking around the streets, waiting to explode. For those with concerns about their own mental health, fear has been intensified, with the idea never far away that surrender to diagnosis and treatment could result in indefinite loss of liberty.

Such issues may not have been at the forefront of Ms Parker's mind, or even at the back of them, when she made her pathetic decision simply to try to escape from her troubles in such a dangerous and irresponsible fashion. Nor may they have contributed at all to the fear of passing responsibility for the future of Rufus and his mother to another adult, which appears to have motivated Rufus in his courageous attempt to carry on as if nothing was wrong.

But the truly sad fact is that whatever Ms Parker's fears, and whatever triggered them, she and her son are in fact likely now to receive neither criminal charges nor indefinite separation, but practical, expert help. For beyond the loudly proclaimed aims of the populist, headline-grabbing, tough-posturing, putative bill, there is a genuine wish within government for mental health problems to be demystified and understood.

The reality of much mental health care in this country is so much better than the picture that is painted by the grand schemes that are waved before the electorate with macho intent. There are sympathetic support systems, good doctors and solid, sensible counsellors awaiting Ms Parker and her son. Let's hope that at last they are discovering them. The best of luck to this troubled, plucky family.

d.orr@independent.co.uk