Islington Tribune - News: Mental Health | Hanging | Paranoid Schizophrenic

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Islington Tribune - by TOM FOOT
Published: 3 October 2008

Mental health patient found hanged at unit

A PARANOID schizophrenic killed himself a week after being admitted to a mental health unit in Archway, an inquest has heard.
Anthony Jr Brown, 42, hung himself from a makeshift noose at the Dartmouth Park Hill unit on November 13 last year.
The court heard that, although having a history of suicidal attempts and an arson conviction, Mr Brown was not considered a threat to himself or other patients and was under a low level of supervision.
Nurse Atwaisile Bololo said: “He came into the kitchen at 9.15pm and took three sandwiches and a cup of tea and went back to his bedroom. He asked me if I was all right and just walked off.”
About half an hour later, a nurse discovered Mr Brown hanging from a twisted mesh of sodden clothes, jammed into the door of his room’s en-suite bathroom.
He was cut down but attempts to resuscitate him failed.
Mr Brown had been admitted to the unit after attacking a resident at St George’s House hostel in Camden Road, Holloway.
The court heard Mr Brown was prone to violence and was serving a Home Office restriction order following a conviction for arson in 2002.
Consultant psychiatrist Christopher McEverly said: “He never said he was feeling suicidal when I asked him directly. He didn’t want to go back to the hostel, but he was anxious about moving to another one.”
Mr McEverly rejected a suggestion that the suicide was a “cry for help”.
“He knew his mind,” the consultant psychiatrist said. “He intended to take his life. There was a lot of attention to the mechanism of his death. It was quite carefully thought through.
“The routine level of supervision he was under was appropriate. There was no lack of basic medical attention. The nature of paranoid schizophrenia is that, in moments of insight or lucidity, they are suddenly compelled to voluntary acts of self-harm. The opportunity presented itself and Mr Brown took his own life.”
Verdict: suicide.

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