Top authors attack Bill as 'terrifying'

Authors Fay Weldon and Rose Tremain have become the latest public figures to back The Independent on Sunday's mental health campaign.

Ms Weldon, who is one of the judges for the mental health charity Mind's Book of the Year award, welcomed the campaign's message. "Good for you is what I say. People are afraid of mental illness because they have a perception that it's incurable so they'd rather not think about it." The author slammed the Government's Mental Health Bill as "terrifying" and too extreme.

"There must be a halfway house between the extremes of locking people up and throwing away the key – which is an appalling thing – and moving people to a safe space where they can't be a danger to themselves and others. The power to lock people up seems to be rather terrifying."

She also expressed disappointment that the Bill promised no improvement for the situation of parents caring for offspring over the age of 18.

"If you have a child of 18 who is mentally ill and at home, you can't as a parent – even though you are looking after them – get any information about their care because the child is of age and those involved aren't allowed to tell you.

"This is obviously crazy because if you're living with someone you need to know what's going on."

Fellow author, Rose Tremain, whose latest novel Music and Silence won the Whitbread Novel Prize, struck a more upbeat tone.

"People have learnt to be more tolerant and more accepting that there isn't a uniform state of being – that we all have strangeness. I would feel fairly optimistic about the way people regard Alzheimer's, for instance, with greater compassion than they used to."

In welcoming the campaign, Tremain emphasised the importance of investigative journalism in today's society.

"All media have a duty to reveal to us everything in society that we might not be aware of," she said. "People lead terribly busy lives, it's difficult to keep focused on all the stuff there is."

Dr Mike McClure, Director of Public Education at the Royal College of Psychiatry, also backed the campaign and attacked the Government's focus on the mentally ill's potential danger to the public.

"We are more likely to be attacked or murdered by people who are not mentally ill than by people who are mentally ill," he said. "The greatest danger is not that mentally ill people will harm others but that they will harm themselves. If an individual is very depressed they may begin to feel worthless and a burden to others, which can lead to suicide."

Dr McClure also expressed profound concern about the proposals to forcibly treat individuals.

"The vast majority of mentally ill people can and should be involved in the decisions regarding their care. Mentally ill people should not be made to feel that they are entering a system that sees them as dangerous and stigmatises them."

The forgotten

By Claire Newbon

"David" should have started a new life next month. He was going to be moved nearer to his girlfriend and leave the medium-secure unit in London where he had been detained for the past four years.

But he was forced to endure a nine-month wait at a rehabilitation unit, as a financial dispute rumbled on between the local authorities responsible for his release. He suffered a relapse and was sent back to a medium-security ward.

David, now 29, was first diagnosed as having a learning disability in 1997. A skilled carpenter, he had worked for several years in London despite being given insufficient treatment for psychiatric problems, which had manifested themselves as fire-starting incidents during his late teens.

He was detained in 1997, at the age of 24, after setting fire to an abandoned building, but after treatment his behaviour improved radically. Hisrelapse was in the form of a minor arson-related incident.

David, speaking through a solicitor, said: "The doctors all agreed that I should be discharged to the hostel, but delays in the system have let me down. I feel frustrated not to be discharged. It has all taken too long."

Solicitor Sam Poulson says that his client has been left in limbo: "The results effect everybody – the patient, the staff, the wider community."