Please consider a donation to support Tom at what must be an utterly desperate time for him and those supporting him, personally and professionally. Please consider sharing the post if you're able, to widen its reach.

I’ve been saddened to learn a friend is a relative of the Gloucestershire officer who lost his family on Boxing Day. I’ve been asked to thank the emergency services involved in responding and for people to respect the family’s privacy. Can donate here - t.co/Yu4a5AzGd0

If we're going to have a complaints oversight for policing, why would we allow them to review investigations if they don't understand the MHA, where the force's PSD investigator didn't understand it either and where it's directly relevant? Couldn't make that up, could you?!

I always have one or two hundred questions about services like this, but then feel weird for intuitively wondering how much of a dent they'll make in the problem they say they're trying to dent. 1/ www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

NEW BLOG - "Merry Kweenuz!" mentalhealthcop.com/2025/12/24/k...

Mental Health Bill receives Royal Assent, “revolutionising care” — So we now have a Mental Health Act 2025. Not sure it will “revolutionise” anything, though - it merely amends the 1983 Act and not in a radical way. www.gov.uk/government/n...

The @ukparliament.parliament.uk website suggests the Mental Health Bill will receive (or go for?) Royal Assent tomorrow, the 18th December —

Police Scotland warn mental health call-outs are “unsustainable” — www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

NEW BLOG - "Merry Christmas, Hollie" A man was recently imprisoned for a hideous and serious assault on a police officer - the case shows how serious mental illness does not necessarily preclude someone being able to form a specific intent in law. mentalhealthcop.com/2025/12/17/m...

Wrapping up research efforts for the year as I've got an expert report to write this week and then I'm having ten days off until after New Year. I've now identified 300 mental health related police contact deaths this century, with 154 PFD notices. 2026 is going to be busy.

I finally decided to stop being tight and pay for the version of Wordpress which means no adverts! - I hope this improves the experience of using the site and despite a slightly changed web-address, all the old links continue to work. www.mentalhealthcop.com

Northampton hospital staff "caught on CCTV assaulting patients" - Plenty of discussion, policy work and conferences about assaults by patients on staff, patients on other patients, etc. Always much less said about assaults by staff on patients. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Health Secretary confirms statutory public inquiry in to Tees, Esk and Wear Valley NHS mental health trust. So soon two problematic NHS MH trusts will have statutory public inquiries on the go - Essex is the other. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

NEW BLOG - "Unlawful Killing" A delayed PFD publication due to a police force applying for and being refused judicial review of the inquest outcome. An interesting PFD because it expressly links to another issued to the same force on similar issues. mentalhealthcop.wordpress.com/2025/12/11/u...

NEW BLOG - "Unlawful Killing" A delayed PFD publication due to a police force applying for and being refused judicial review of the inquest outcome. An interesting PFD because it expressly links to another issued to the same force on similar issues. mentalhealthcop.wordpress.com/2025/12/11/u...

NEW PREVENTING FUTURE DEATHS REPORT - A delayed publication due to a police force applying for and being refused judicial review of the inquest outcome. An interesting PFD because it expressly links to another issued to the same force on similar issues. www.judiciary.uk/prevention-o...

Been searching online in recent days for evidence of jointly agreed protocols between agencies as to how the Mental Health Act should operate across five areas of business. I'm not getting very far, very fast. 1/

Women jailed due to lack of mental health beds - report. Amazing to say it's an example of the prison system failing women, when it seems likely they would welcome a transfer for those who need hospital admission and care. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

NEW BLOG - "The Mental Health Act 2025?" We're now just waiting on Royal Assent - a few things about police specific aspects and what happens from here to get this thing up and running. mentalhealthcop.wordpress.com/2025/12/10/t...

A brilliant week to look forward to - Mon - research event on "sensitive research topics" Tue - research methods lecture Fri - AMHP training (Manchester). Sun - fetch man-boy from university for Christmas break. Also Sun - hand car keys to man-boy and see car again in January.

Very sobering from @houseofcommons.parliament.uk Health & Social Care select committee on community mental health services: "Failure to act risks worsening outcomes, deepening inequalities, and will lead to further preventable harm and tragic loss of life." committees.parliament.uk/publications...

Already up, in and "at it", @unibirmingham.bsky.social campus looking moody and up for it - A full day at a seminar for "emotionally demanding research", which sounds extremely interesting. I've shut my laptop on myself several times this year and walked away so should be useful.

Streeting orders review into mental health and ADHD diagnoses - www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

NEW PREVENTING FUTURE DEATHS REPORT - Coroner raising as a matter of concern, a lack of guidance for call handlers and a "system issue" about whether incidents are dealt with as "missing" or "RCRP" cases. Other HM Coroners have also raised this. www.judiciary.uk/prevention-o...

NEW BLOG - “One For Ambulance”. Some thoughts on prematurely deflecting demand across emergency services, before enough is known. mentalhealthcop.wordpress.com/2025/12/03/o...

Although I don't steal iPhones from Tesco's or indeed steal anything from anywhere, if I did find myself charged with a crime, I'd always have a solicitor in police custody and I'd want a jury trial, wherever possible. Seen far too many utterly perverse outcomes in Magistrates' Courts over time.

Good of David Lammy to help with material for our 1st yr "Future of Criminal Justice" lecture. Could have used much more notice so I'm not re-writing half of it over lunch! There's a big presumption of guilt in the MoJ press release, isn't there?! - www.gov.uk/government/n...

Man who threw boy from Tate Modern assaulted Broadmoor nurses — Thus demonstrating it *is* possible to prosecute someone already detained in hospital under MHA. www.bbc.com/news/article...

NEW BLOG - "A Dangerous Game of Chicken" A post I simply forgot to publish in 2023(!) but it's not taking a pop at RCRP - it's explaining why I think it ended up happening by looking back to the Crisis Care Concordat from over 10yrs ago. mentalhealthcop.wordpress.com/2025/11/26/a...

It was a real privilege to be invited to speak to the Hundred Families family day in Manchester yesterday - and to be invited to the pub afterwards! And good to meet Julian Hendy at long last after many years a “pen friends” discussing incidents and issues. Important work.

NEW BLOG - "Briefing To Officers" A new document from the @collegeofpolicing.bsky.social aims to assist police officers and staff in preparing specifically for RCRP related inquests. mentalhealthcop.wordpress.com/2025/11/19/b...

Healthcare worker admits neglect over patient death - A mental health related tragedy, the healthcare assistant has been warned the offence is so serious she should prepare herself for a prison sentence. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

It's only Tuesday and I'm enthused - I've just done a +12hr day on various work & study related tasks and absolutely NONE OF IT felt like "work". It felt like me getting back to doing *exactly* what I want to spend my time doing - working on policing and mental health issues.

A brilliant week ahead for me to enjoy - Research discussions; student dissertation supervisions and some work training for me. PhD days x2 and a work team meeting with a team night out! And honoured to be going to Manchester to speak at the @hundredfamilies.bsky.social family day event.

The @collegeofpolicing.bsky.social has produced a "Briefing To Officers" to help prepare specifically for RCRP related inquests - I'm quite amazed they've actually published this. Blog post out tomorrow morning with an update about my ongoing research work. www.college.police.uk/guidance/rig...

The frustrating part about this IOPC publication is their understandable anonymisation of the cases. Nothing about this case resonates as one of the twenty "RCRP inquests" I've so far identified, but it's hard to be sure as some PFDs are limited in their outline of events.

From @policeconduct.bsky.social Lessons Learned publication - The confusion between “welfare checks” and “missing people” is not new to RCRP, it’s been highlighted many times before.

A MH trust has asked me a question and some of you may be better placed to help - Does anyone know of a 136 process where a non-s12 doctor "triages" all 136 detentions on arrival at the PoS ahead of the AMHP-led assessment? 1/

Every time I read articles about success of screening for particular conditions, I'm reminded how many charities, campaigners and others want condition-specific screening in police custody (and training on it for officers) - EG, why ADHD and not autism? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Nurse and support worker charged with ill-treatment of patients detained a medium-secure mental health unit - www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

This year’s data tells us that last year’s data was wrong — Last year The Met claimed a 27% reduction in their use of s136 MHA - this year, they revised the numbers and ALL of that reduction disappeared.

New section 136 data (for 2024/25) released by the Home Office yesterday - Various questions and problems covered in a new post on it all.

NEW BLOG - "New Statistics on 136" It's not the fault of the Home Office new 136 data begs questions about practice, recording inaccuracy and revision of last year's data. It's resistant to simple-explanation of what's going on so I hope no-one tries. mentalhealthcop.wordpress.com/2025/11/06/n...

One more point - The data tells us why police custody was used as a Place of Safety for the 354 (1.1%) of cases where it was. @wmpolice.bsky.social accounts for 33.3% of those cases(!); @gmpolice.bsky.social for 8.5% and Leicestershire for 7.5% - what's going on?! Half of it from just 3 forces.

The new s135/136 data for England and Wales is now available - It covers the 2024/25 financial year and there has been an overall 5% reduction in use of s136 MHA, but some forces have had significant rise and others a significant fall. 🧵 1/ www.gov.uk/government/s...

The Mental Health Bill will go back to the House of Lords on 24th November, to consider those amendments made during passage in the House of Commons. bills.parliament.uk/bills/3884/p...

NEW BLOG - "Christian Parker" After an inquest last month which was covered on Monday by the Times, it seems we need to worry a little about integrity. mentalhealthcop.wordpress.com/2025/11/05/c...

Anthony Williams, 32yrs old charged with x12 attempted murders, x1 ABH and x2 possession of a bladed article. Remanded for court. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The next batch of Home Office data on police use of s135/136 is published next Thursday (7th). It will be interesting to see the kinds of claims made in light of whether it rises or falls and how different forces use changes. mentalhealthcop.wordpress.com/2024/10/02/n...

NEW BLOG - "Dear Coroner" I've now collected 135 PFD notices for mental health police contact deaths and there are obvious questions amongst them for the coroners themselves, as well as the agencies to which they direct their concerns. mentalhealthcop.wordpress.com/2025/10/29/d...