Across Britain’s mental health system, a quiet disaster has been taking shape. Modern liberal approaches to mental health care are often sold as compassionate and progressive, yet in practice, they have proven dangerously inadequate. Time and again, supposedly well-intentioned policies prioritise ideology over safety, leaving both vulnerable patients and the public exposed to preventable tragedy. Each year, lives are lost as a result of this misplaced faith in systems that simply do not work.

Whenever you hear of a violent tragedy involving a schizophrenic individual attacking an innocent member of the public, it is common for the perpetrator to already be known by mental health services and often someone supposedly being “monitored” under community-based care.

For years, campaigners and families of victims have warned that Britain’s mental health policies are built on wishful thinking rather than reality. The obsession with “care in the community” has replaced proper supervision and secure treatment with a dangerous cocktail of leniency and neglect. Professionals insist that individuals can be safely managed outside hospital walls, yet case after case shows the opposite. Violent and unstable patients are too often left unsupervised, medicated inconsistently, or ignored until tragedy strikes.

The Calocane Case: A Failure on Every Level

Valdo Calocane’s name has become synonymous with institutional failure. Mental health professionals had flagged him as high-risk for years. He suffered from schizophrenia, had been sectioned several times, missed appointments, refused medication and displayed violent behaviour. Despite this, he was repeatedly discharged back into the community.

There were numerous opportunities to intervene more decisively. Long-acting injectable medication was discussed but not enforced because Calocane "didn’t like needles." His refusal to cooperate was treated as a preference rather than a warning sign. Predictably, tragedy followed. In June 2023, Calocane fatally stabbed three people and injured others in Nottingham.

An independent review found a catalogue of failures: poor risk assessment, premature discharge, a lack of follow-up, weak communication between teams and a dangerous underestimation of risk. Every level of the system failed.

The David Fleet Case: An Obvious Disaster Waiting to Happen

One case that illustrates the catastrophic failures of lax community mental health supervision is the case of David Fleet. In 2019 Fleet stabbed Lewis Stone, a 71-year-old man walking his dog, just ten days after being released from a secure psychiatric unit despite his mother warning hospital staff that he was still unwell and behaving dangerously.

The care system had repeatedly noted his worsening mental state, including carrying knives and speaking of "voices in his head". Yet despite the warnings Fleet was allowed home. He later pleaded guilty to manslaughter by diminished responsibility and was detained "indefinitely" under a hospital order. Only six years later, however, he was granted overnight leave at home, a decision made without input from Mr Stone’s family who say they have been "treated disgracefully."

"I thought that February 28th 2019, when Lewis was attacked, and the three months that followed before he died from his injuries, was the worst period of our lives. Little did I know however that that was just the beginning of our nightmare. As victims, we have been treated disgracefully. We have been kept completely in the dark and treated like dirt on the bottom of the NHS’s shoes.

"But as if all that were not bad enough, only six years on, we now get to live knowing that the killer is now allowed out at night-time and will surely be released permanently soon. What kind of a country is this that we live in where victims of killings are treated like this?"

These are not isolated incidents. In fact, around 6% of all murders in the UK are committed by individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia. Research also shows that a quarter of men convicted of homicide, and more than half of convicted female perpetrators in England and Wales, have a lifetime history of mental illness. Alarmingly, one in ten had been in contact with mental health services in the year before their crime

What is a Community Treatment Order

A Community Treatment Order in the UK is a legal measure that allows a person who has been detained in hospital under the Mental Health Act to be released into the public while remaining under supervision.

Under a CTO, patients are asked to comply with specific conditions set by their clinician and social worker, such as taking prescribed medication, attending appointments, or living at an approved address. It is not uncommon for patients to disregard these conditions, often turning to drugs such as cannabis, despite the clear risks.

In theory, CTOs are designed to give seriously ill patients personal freedom, ensuring that vulnerable individuals receive ongoing care while reducing pressure on psychiatric wards. In practice, however, their effectiveness and safety are increasingly being called into question.

Risk assessments are carried out in isolation rather than by looking at long-term behaviour. When non-engagement becomes acceptable, dangerous individuals are effectively left alone.

The Liberal Myth of Compassion

The liberal establishment insists that CTOs and social Laissez-faire strikes a humane balance between freedom and safety. They claim to protect civil liberties while keeping the public safe. In truth, they protect no one. Our current mental health laws allow officials to feel they have acted without actually taking responsibility. When a patient refuses treatment, their comfort is prioritised over their health and over public safety.

The result is a form of moral cowardice disguised as compassion. Bureaucrats reassure themselves that they are being kind while they quietly abandon the very people they are meant to protect. It is the same logic that allowed Calocane to slip through the system again and again until three innocent people were dead.

What Must Be Done

1. Abolish Community Treatment Orders completely. They do not work, and they create false confidence in a system that cannot enforce its own conditions.

2. Reform the Mental Health Act to create a clear legal framework that allows dangerous individuals to be detained and treated until they are genuinely safe or indefinitely.

3. Enforce treatment where there is a serious risk to the public. Compulsory medication, particularly depot injections, should be legally possible under medical and judicial oversight.

4. Hold professionals accountable when negligence or weak oversight leads to avoidable deaths.

5. Fund community mental health services properly so that decisions are based on safety rather than administrative convenience.

Valdo Calocane did not fall through the cracks by chance. He was failed by a culture that fears being seen as harsh more than it fears innocent people being killed. Liberalised mental health policy does not include safeguards; only excuses. If we are serious about protecting the public and helping the mentally ill, then this anarchist system must end.

It is time to completely redesign our mental health services, abolish Community Treatment Orders and replace them with a mental health policy rooted in responsibility, not fear.