Deaths of thousands of mental health patients in Essex to be investigated as families hope for answers

The deaths of around 2,000 mental health patients will be investigated as a long-awaited new public inquiry begins on Monday.

Warning: The following article contains details some readers may find distressing

Families of the patients who died in Essex have been campaigning for years, claiming they have not been told the truth about what happened to their loved ones.

Melanie Leahy, whose son Matthew is among those who died, believes the large number of deaths being investigated will continue to grow.

“I think we’re going to find there’s a lot, lot more. And I think it’s absolutely horrendous,” she told Sky News.

“I believe it’s a cull. It’s a cull of our most vulnerable, our most gentle, our most needy.”

Matthew Leahy, 20, died in November 2012.

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He was found unresponsive in his room at the Linden Centre, a secure mental health unit in Chelmsford, eight days after he was sectioned.

His mother received a call to tell her what had happened. She raced to the hospital but it was too late.

She recalls going in and “there lay Matthew, on the trolley, he had a blue hospital gown on… And in that instant I just wanted to go and grab him and hold him and bring him back to life”.

Mrs Leahy says she was told by staff: “Don’t touch, he’s a crime scene.”

“I was taken into a side room and asked what undertaker I had planned,” she remembers. “I was planning his 21st birthday.”

It was soon after Mr Leahy’s death that she grew concerned that things she was being told about what happened didn’t add up.

Mrs Leahy also has unanswered questions about a serious allegation her son had made days before his death.

Mr Leahy had called his father and told him he had been raped.

He then called police and can be heard on the 999 call telling the operator: “I’ve been raped and the doctors refuse to acknowledge it.”

Police went to the unit but no arrests were made.

An inquest into Mr Leahy’s death found it occurred after a “series of multiple failings and missed opportunities”. Staff even falsified his care plan after he died.

During years of fighting for answers, Mrs Leahy has met many other families who have also lost loved ones who were mental health patients in Essex.

In 2021 the Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust was fined £1.5m over failures in care that led to the deaths of 11 patients after pleading guilty to safety breaches that meant it failed to “prevent suicides”.

Since then the number of deaths under investigation has continued to grow.

The 2,000 deaths the new inquiry will examine all took place between the start of 2000 and the end of 2023.

Priya Singh is a lawyer representing dozens of families involved in the inquiry and says the details of cases she’s involved with are harrowing.

“Allegations of physical abuse and sexual abuse have come up many, many, many times,” she told Sky News.

“I don’t feel that we’re just only looking at negligence here. We’re looking at abuse.”

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She believes it’s essential that national recommendations are made while the new inquiry is ongoing, to protect mental health patients across the NHS.

“This is definitely happening all over the country. Psychiatric care in this country is almost not fit for purpose right now,” she says.

The inquiry will be known as the Lampard Inquiry, chaired by Baroness Lampard who previously led the investigation into abuse by Jimmy Savile in the NHS.

Paul Scott, chief executive of Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (EPUT), said: “We know how painful this time will be for those who have lost loved ones and our thoughts are with them.

“We will continue to do all we can to support Baroness Lampard and her team to provide the answers that patients, families and carers are seeking.”

Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email [email protected] in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK.

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