'IoS' investigation: The forgotten inmates of secure mental hospitals

Paul threw a stone through a window 20 years ago - so why is he still in Broadmoor?

Paul's most serious crime was to throw a stone through the window of his local benefits office. His extraordinary punishment has been to spend the past 20 years in Broadmoor. Doctors don't want to keep him there but for the father-of-two, diagnosed a chronic schizophrenic, there is nowhere else to go.

There are hundreds of patients such as Paul, trapped needlessly in high-security hospitals. Figures obtained by The Independent on Sunday show that as many as 400 other patients languish behind the walls of Britain's three high-security hospitals.

Broadmoor, which houses notorious killers such as Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, admitted last week that it has about 100 patients who should be moved. Rampton has drawn up a list of another 80 and Ashworth confirms that it has 83 patients who need "appropriate re-provision".

The Government has a national strategy to transfer patients from high-security hospitals. In 2000, it announced a £25m plan to provide an extra 200 places in alternative units. Health authorities were ordered to transfer eligible patients by 2004. But, according to campaign groups, the process is too slow.

All the high-security hospitals agree that the main hurdle is a lack of beds in the community. "For many years, the local services have not had appropriate secure places where patients could stay in for a long time," said a spokesman for Ashworth Hospital Authority. "Because of this some patients have had to remain in high secure environments. It's a national problem being addressed through the NHS plan."

Oxfordshire Mental Health Care NHS Trust, which manages Broadmoor, said the process of discharging patients from special hospitals was "complicated".

"People are not put on waiting lists until they are deemed to be clinically fit to move," said a spokesman. "We then have to wait for Home Office permission before transfer can take place.

"There is a recognised national shortage of secure beds and this can also delay the speed at which people are transferred." More than a third of patients in these high-security hospitals are ready to leave but they remain trapped because of a national shortage of secure beds.

In turn, they are occupying vital places that rightfully should be allocated to hundreds of mentally ill people being held in prison.

Anne Owers, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, has demanded that David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, takes urgent steps to get severely mentally ill people out of jails and into secure hospitals.

Paul's tragic case highlights the issue of those trapped in places such as Broadmoor. When Paul's sister Josephine Knight-Jacob visits, he always asks her: "Why can't I come home with you, Jo?" It is a question to which she still cannot find an answer.

The father of two daughters, Paul first developed mental health problems after a difficult divorce from his wife, Mandy. He had been living in Brighton but returned to his family in Oxford. One day, he was found walking along a motorway after stealing a jar of Marmite.

After a brief stay in a psychiatric hospital, Paul was discharged but soon found himself before the authorities again. This time he grabbed a woman in the street, then threw a brick through a window. This led to a conviction in 1982 for criminal damage but prison was deemed too cruel for a mentally ill man – so he was sent to Broadmoor.

His doctors agree that Paul does not need to be in the high-security hospital. His health authority agreed as far back as 1995 that he was ready to be moved. Yet Paul, who is now aged 48, is still waiting for a transfer date.

Several months ago, Paul was placed on the top of a waiting list for a low-secure long-term unit and is now waiting to receive a transfer date. This is the result of a seven-year battle by his family to have him placed in a low-security unit where he can go on shopping trips, indulge his passion for football and slowly learn to lead a normal life again. Until Paul can be given a place in a long-term unit for the chronic schizophrenic, his life remains severely restricted.

He is frequently searched and has to remain within hospital grounds. On rare occasions, he is allowed visits to his 87-year-old mother, escorted by hospital guards.

Lucy Scott-Moncrieff is Paul's lawyer and a specialist in mental health law. She describes Paul's incarceration and that of other patients as "scandalous".

"He is very ill but he is not stupid," she says. He feels he must be a very bad person to be in Broadmoor all this time. He has seen killers come and go and he is still there."

Behind the walls

Broadmoor, Crowthorne, Berkshire

Date built: 1863

Infamous patients: Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper; David Copeland, the Soho nail bomber; Ronnie Kray, train robber, now dead

Regime: Patients are allowed own, air-locked rooms but are routinely searched and kept within hospital grounds. Average stay is eight years

Number of patients: 440

Number on transfer list: approximately 100

Background: Occupies 55 acres of a 412-acre estate, with gardens, educational and therapeutic facilities. A new 17ft-high "ring of steel" cost more than £14m

Ashworth, Merseyside

Date built: The original 1878 building, Moss Side, became a special hospital in 1933. In 1974, a second hospital, Park Lane, was built alongside. Two units merged in 1989

Infamous patients: The Moors murderer Ian Brady

Regime: An enquiry into Ashworth in 1992 highlighted its "brutalising regime". Treatment is decided on an individual basis. Routine searches and safety checks

Number of patients: 450

Number on transfer list: 83 identified as "appropriate for re-provision"

Background: First a convalescent home for Liverpool workhouse children, then housed First World War invalids. The secure hospital is located outside the bleak dormitory town of Maghull

Rampton, Retford, Nottinghamshire

Date built: 1912

Infamous patient: The serial child-killer Beverley Allitt

Regime: All patients have their own rooms but are routinely searched. There are 14 high-security wards and 14 "villa" wards where less disturbed patients can roam freely, all within a 57-hectare security perimeter fence. National centre for treating in-patients with learning disabilities

Number of patients: 440

Number on the transfer list: 80 patients discharged each year

Background: A new 70-place unit at Rampton will be completed in 2003 at an estimated cost of £11m, with treatment costing £180,000 a year for each patient suffering from "dangerous" or severe personality disorders and a separate £10m reception centre

Claire Newbon