Mental patient sprayed in home

PATIENT X was in his own home when police sprayed him with CS. Officers had been called to the home of the 28-year-old Cambridge man to assist with his transfer to hospital.

His social worker, mother and sister were there and they too were sprayed, leaving them all with streaming eyes and overwhelming pain from the burning after-effects of the spray.

Now, in the first case of its kind in the UK, the man is suing the police for alleged assault and for exemplary damages for police violation of his constitutional rights as a patient being detained under the Mental Health Act.

The incident is just one of hundreds in which the police across Britain have taken to quelling the vulnerable mentally ill with CS spray - a practice condemned by mental health experts as "inappropriate" when it was first revealed in the Independent on Sunday last week.

Yesterday, the mental health charity Mind called for a halt to the use of the spray on mentally ill people. One of the major concerns is that no one knows the effects of the spray when its chemicals become mixed with the powerful cocktail of anti- psychotic drugs that many mentally ill people take.

Patient X's solicitor, Peter Gourri, of Massucco Shelbourne Wray, explained that he will contend that the police knew that the patient was not violent, and that he was treated like a criminal rather than a patient with an illness.

"Notwithstanding advice that he was calm and passive, the police arrived and sprayed him before he said or did anything," said Mr Gourri. "The immediate effects upon him were panic and confusion. He was frightened and foaming at the mouth. He was taken outside and thrown face down onto the front lawn of the house and he was handcuffed. He was visibly distressed until his sister calmed him down and he was taken to hospital.

"We are saying that there should be aggravated damages because of the assault on him and that the police were wrong to use CS spray. We are also seeking exemplary damages for the unconstitutional conduct of the officers involved without regard to the plaintiff's dignity as a citizen, his needs as a patient, and his right to a lawful conveyance to hospital."

MP Rhodri Morgan, chairman of the Commons Select Committee on Public Administration and a former health and social services spokesman for Labour, said yesterday there should be tighter controls.

"It's clear that there needs to be much tighter guidelines in the use of CS spray in patients who are known to be mentally ill. I will be writing to the Secretary of State for Health and to the Home Secretary asking for new instructions to be issued to the police," he said.

Jenny Wilmot, police officer for Mind, said: "There are sometimes incidents on the street, but we are much more concerned where it has been used in hospitals or in people's homes because in these situations it will be known in advance by the police that people with a mental health problem are involved.

"All the evidence is that there is no special thought given to whether there are any implications to spraying a person in mental distress with CS, and we think there are.

"Our concern is that it is being used as a first resort rather than a last resort. It is potentially dangerous in our view and it is being used very widely."

A Cambridgeshire police spokesman said yesterday that he was unable to comment.