Article

A Question of Accountability

According to an investigation by Hundred Families, a charity that supports and advocates for families affected by mental health homicides, each year an average of 65 mentally ill people carry out killings. Between 2018-2023, 390 mental health patients in England committed, or were suspected of, murder or manslaughter.

The findings come after an independent report exposed a series of NHS failures in the treatment of Valdo Calocane, a man with schizophrenia who killed three people in Nottingham in 2023.

The cases of killers Calocane and Axel Rudakubana, who stabbed three small girls to death and attempted to kill several others in Southport in 2024 when he was 17 years-old, have sparked fierce debate over the place within wider society of people with severe mental health issues. According to many, it appears they don’t have one.

A Question of Responsibility

A key reason why those with severe mental health issues are customarily condemned as wicked and irredeemable is that we continue to believe that a person should invariably be held accountable for their own actions. This is a damagingly simplistic view.

Anyone who has worked in the field of mental health knows there are many cases in which people’s minds, to all intents and purposes, aren’t their own. Those, like Calocane, suffering from an overwhelming condition such as schizophrenia for example, frequently have no grasp of reality and have hampered moral reasoning.

When Findings Alone Aren’t Enough

Numerous studies have shown how those in the grip of psychosis and similar illnesses don’t choose to be “evil”. They don’t choose to experience horrific delusions about the world around them. They don’t choose to endure hallucinations that tell them to carry out terrible acts.

Yet the broader public seems to have little or no interest in such findings. Alarmingly, the same might be said of many policymakers. Their knowledge and opinions are instead more likely to be shaped by rhetoric and knee-jerk denunciation.

Conclusion

The lesson is both clear and familiar: the best way of having conversations about stigma, responsibility and the cost of abdicating our social obligations to those suffering from severe mental illness is to involve the whole of society. Not just the mental health community, police and the justice system, but the general public as well.

FAQs

• What is the number of mentally ill people who carry out killings each year?
  According to an investigation by Hundred Families, an average of 65 mentally ill people carry out killings each year.
• What is the total number of mental health patients in England who committed or were suspected of murder or manslaughter between 2018-2023?
  According to the investigation, 390 mental health patients in England committed, or were suspected of, murder or manslaughter between 2018-2023.
• What are the names of the two killers mentioned in the article?
  The two killers mentioned in the article are Valdo Calocane and Axel Rudakubana.
• What is the name of the charity that supports and advocates for families affected by mental health homicides?
  The charity mentioned in the article is Hundred Families.