From My Favourite Shrunken Hearted Shrink

This Telegraph article makes little sense.  Dalrymple is using a single case to illustrate his own problem with these kind of cases being dealt with by the courts at all.  (Does he think that perhaps these cases should not be the business of the legal system but of his own specialism: psychiatry?)  Should we never require psychologically vulnerable people to take the stand?  Does that include perpetrators?  And surely the job of ensuring that witnesses are psychologically robust enough to take the stand are members of his own medical specialism: psychiatry.

And yet the main target of his criticism is (as always) the police. He mentions the CPS, of course, but only in passing.  It is the CPS who decide whether or not to launch a prosecution.  A casual glance at police internet fora reveals that the decisions made by the CPS are often a source of much consternation among rank and file members of the police force.

I do not believe I have every seen so many non-sequiturs and red herrings in a single op-ed piece.

What for example is this supposed to mean?

‘The police and CPS, moreover, have been heavily criticised for the low rate of conviction in cases of rape and sexual abuse, often by the very people who, in other circumstances, deny the efficacy or justice of punishment.

Why, after all, should the punishment of sexual abusers have a deterrent effect, but not that of burglars?’

Can he name the people to whom he refers in this passage?

And then of course comes the kind of evidence that Dalrymple relies on to support his often ill thought out theories: a single piece of anecdotal evidence:

‘I recall, for example, the case of a man who was wrongly accused of rape by a woman; the prosecution not only failed to prove the allegation beyond reasonable doubt, but the defence proved beyond reasonable doubt that it was false.

Yet after his release from prison on remand he was treated by those around him as if he were guilty, on the grounds that there was no smoke without fire.’

It is high time that Dalrymple learnt something from the methodology of the historian: that academic discipline has no problem with anecdotal evidence. It does insist, however, on the use of multiple sources.

Incidentally, the good doctor is back in Yeovil again.

He devoted an entire book to that small town in Somerset:

http://www.libertylawsite.org/2013/02/05/a-program-of-integrated-frivolity/

Aimed at Americans, a fact made all too clear by the following: ‘Recently I stayed a few weeks in a small town in Somerset, England called Yeovil, pronounced Yoville.’ (because they are evidently too stupid to work that out for themselves.)  I’m guessing that Wifey Dalrymple is there delivering ECT to the elderly mentalists of ‘the most important town in Somerset’.  She is a geriatric psychiatrist (in more ways than one).  I’m also guessing she’ll be working for a while yet. Fourteen years of service, even in the publicly funded NHS, doesn’t yield a terribly generous pension. Poor old lady hitched her wagon to the wrong star there. I’m thinking maybe an internet wide collection may be in order.

Addendum: This is the place in which Dalrymple acted as a kind of indentured servant to the NHS for fourteen years (some kind of record, surely.)

 

Stirring the Hornet’s Nest

I’ve been engrossed in the blog of Inspector Gadget (No, not that Inspector Gadget with the niece called Penny and all of those Gadgets; our Mr Gadget is not even entitled to carry a firearm).

The main topic of conversation over there at the moment is the inquest into the death of Barrister Mark Saunders and The Daily Mail’s unashamedly biased reporting on the issue.  First, a caveat: I have some sympathy for Mr. Saunders and his family and I expressed it unequivocally here.  In spite of this I believe Mr Saunders was killed lawfully.  Whether they were aware of it or not the authorised firearms officers were acting on the principle of the lesser of two evils.  The greater evil would have been to simply leave him be and let him do whatever he pleased with his loaded weapons.  This, clearly would have been untenable so they reacted exactly as their training had taught them to and fired back when they were fired upon.  They killed one to save many.

The ever-self righteous Daily Mail includes a gallery of gunmen shot dead by  authorised firearms officers in the last fifteen years.  According to The Daily Mail these men are victims, even those who, at the moment they were shot, were holding innocent bystanders hostage.   Of course, this has all been precipitated by the inquest into the death of Cambridge educated barrister Mark Saunders.  If you take a look at the paragraph accompanying Saunders’ picture you will see that his apartment was worth 2.2 million.  Only in the Daily Mail…

But the greatest calumny of all can be found in  their Sunday editorial in which they equate the shooting of gunmen by police with formal execution.  They then go on to propose that any AFO who draws his weapon should be  identified and publicly named.  They clearly have not thought of the consequences of the policy they are advocating, for who would volunteer to be an AFO in the knowledge that if they do their job they will be ‘named and shamed’ by The Daily Mail and possibly be facing a murder charge if the mob turns against them?

The Daily Mail is beyond parody.  It frequently complains of the break down of law and order in this fair land and then prints ‘investigative’ pieces like this that only serve to contribute to the destruction of all it claims to hold dear.  What is their agenda?  They don’t have one.  They like to stir the hornet’s nest for conflict is their bread and butter.

Is this What They Call Closure?

In July, 2005, I was physically attacked by someone I had regarded as a friend. Ancient history now, some would say.  It left me numbed and afraid. I’ve never really been the same gregarious person since.  And I’m willing to concede that my decline isn’t solely the result of the attack. That is a very small part of a very big picture.

So why is this relevant to my life now?  He has been punished.  I have been punished (the people I thought were my friends abandoned me.  They took his side).  Yesterday my friend L. telephoned.  She mentioned that she was going to Great Yarmouth with some friends of hers (suspiciously sociable fellow mentally ill people).  She failed to invite me.  And we all know why.  According to the Circuit (the name we call the ‘mentally ill fraternity in this area) I betrayed them when I agreed to give a statement about A to the police, even though his attack against me didn’t form the main plank of the prosecution against him.  I did not prosecute him, the police did because their hero St A attacked not only me but a police woman who was sent to arrest him.  But I am the target of their wrath.

A casual conversation with N revealed that, five years ago, when Nobby and Philip (my ex-naval officer neighbour) went to the police station on the afternoon following my assault to see whether A was still incarcerated, the officer manning the front desk said ‘His psychiatrist put in a word for him.’

Now, please bear in mind that his psychiatrist is also my psychiatrist.  The problem was he had to make a choice – a choice between two of his patients and he didn’t choose me.  I can accept that.  What I can’t accept is that he failed to take steps to distance himself from my case at that point, declaring a conflict of interests.  He carried on taking charge of my case for the next five years and I firmly believe that the substandard care I was receiving from my community mental health team was a direct result of Dr H’s personal dislike* of me.

Dr H. retired recently.  And some of you may think I’m being self regarding and self dramatising.  And you may be right.  But I will only be able to put this behind me if I know the truth.  I would like a thorough review of my case and treatment.  I’d like to know what’s been happening over the last few years.  Then I will move on. Promise.

I am paranoid.  But they are out to get me.

*Dr. H. is, of course, entitled to ‘like’ whomever he chooses.  This, however, should not have had any relevance to the way he treated me in a professional capacity.

Is This the Last Taboo? (probably not but I thought I’d give it a try)

When I’ve been in hospital I’ve encountered men and women who, frankly, should have been firmly ensconced in prison.

The last time I was in there was this guy wandering all over the ward yelling that he was ‘gonna hurt someone’ if he didn’t get his ‘Lorazies’. It was the sheer number of nurses who seemed to have nothing better to do that to run around after him that got to me. It was as though they were in competition with one another to see who they could get him to ‘warm to’ first. ‘I- Nurse A am really great at interacting with Mr Psycho Patient (No apologies made for that), whereas as she – Nurse B- can’t interact with him at all. In fact she seems to be a little afraid of him. This means that I – Nurse A – really am the superior nurse.’

Later I sat with him in the exercise yard and said: ‘Funny how you’ve got all those nurses running around after you, isn’t it?’

Response: ‘Yeah, good, innit?’ a la ‘it’s a fair cop, guv.’