Stab victim's widow joins care campaign

JAYNE ZITO, whose husband was killed a year ago today by a paranoid schizophrenic who had been discharged from a psychiatric hospital with no adequate supervision, is to join the mental health charity Mind to help campaign for better care in community services.

Mrs Zito had been married for just three months when her Italian husband, Jonathan, was stabbed in the face three times at a London Underground station by Christopher Clunis, a man with a history of mental illness and violent behaviour.

In July this year he was ordered to be detained in a special hospital after admitting manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

Afterwards Mrs Zito appealed for a public inquiry into why Clunis was at large after several violent attacks. She claimed that Clunis was a victim of the Government's controversial community care system whereby mental hospitals were closed and mentally ill people were mainly cared for in the community.

Virginia Bottomley, the Secretary of State for Health, later announced an independent inquiry into the Clunis case. An investigation by the Independent revealed he had been shunted in and out of hospitals for more than six years while successive hospitals, social workers and police failed to take responsibility for him.

Announcing the appointment, Liz Sayce, of Mind, said: 'Jayne is putting her energies into a campaign we are mounting next year, looking at problems on the ground and defining what services ought to be available. We want to see 24- hour crisis mental health services in every area so there isn't a gap between the current 24-hour supervision in hospital followed by next to nothing in the community.'

Asked why she was joining the charity, Mrs Zito said: 'I have to do something useful with my life now that Jonathan is gone. I have to tell the world that he need not have died if Christopher Clunis had received the care and support he was obviously crying out for. There must be proper secure accommodation for people like him so he and the public are protected. I want to change things so that this kind of tragedy need never happen again.'

Life without John, page 20