Fugitives fuel protesters' fears
Dec 13 2006 By Lee Kenny, Birmingham Mail
PROTESTERS fighting plans to open a medium secure mental health unit in Bordesley Green say it must not go ahead following the escape of two "dangerous" patients from another clinic.
The Reaside Clinic, at Rubery, from where patients Marcus Carter and Nathan Gillespie have absconded, has been heralded as an example of a successfully managed locked unit.
But residents campaigning against plans for a psychiatric care centre in Yardley Green Road said the break-out showed exactly why the new unit should not go ahead.
People living near to the proposed site have been consulted by the NHS about the proposals and were even given a guided tour of Reaside by bosses who laid on a coach to take them there in a bid to reassure residents' fears.
But news of last week's escapes has only reinforced the concerns of local people, who have already raised a 1,600-name petition against the plan
Marcus Carter and Nathan Gillespie fled the locked unit on Thursday, December 7. They were still on the run today (13).
Police have described the pair as "potentiality a danger to themselves or others" and urged members of the public not to approach them.
Reaside has long been regarded as one of the area's safest medium secure units.
Officials at Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Trust, who manage the clinic, held it up as an example of how the 85-bed Yardley Green unit will be run if it receives planning consent.
But residents are demanding bosses re-think the scheme which, if given the go ahead, will also include a child and adolescent mental health resource centre.
Resident Nazar Hussian was one of eight protesters who toured Reaside. He said: "I was told how safe it is. But if this can happen there it can happen in Yardley Green Hospital and this is a much more built-up area than in Rubery. There are eight schools nearby and an old folks' home.
"Do we want people who are a danger to the community being brought here?
"I have asked what category these people will be and we were told they will include murderers, rapists and paedophiles. The people who make these decision don't live around here, we do and we will have to pick up the pieces if it goes wrong."
A spokeswoman for Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Trust said: "The 30 Primary Care Trusts in the West Midlands currently have to send many male mental health patients to be cared for in secure units up to 100 miles away from their homes and families."
"The proposed unit would house 75 to 85 male patients as part of a region-wide plan to improve specialist mental health services for this particularly vulnerable group of people.
"The unit would be for men suffering from a form of severe mental illness who need to be cared for in a secure environment Ð which may be for their own safety as much as for that of the public.
"By no means everybody cared for at the unit would have been through the criminal justice system. "
