Lookout, believe me, I appreciate that this is a difficult one to call. With the luxury of hindsight he posed a very great danger and it resulted in yet another tragedy. However, I wonder how many people had believed -and testified- that he DIDN'T. We have no idea of how emphatic was his mother when she complained about his rages -DID she complain about them, or did she, like your friend with the difficult daughter -even you, on your friend's behalf and maybe, like the Bamber's- prefer to keep it private? It seems that she may have had her own problems to contend with.
We know that police aren't qualified to make mental health assessments so someone above them must have deemed him to be safe but once again I'm getting a sense of the possibility of various agencies not being in communication with each other. It's easy to point fingers when things go wrong and I feel perfectly certain that he wouldn't have been allowed to roam around had he been considered dangerous -although it's up for grabs as to what would have been done with him had it been the case- on the other hand there is nothing the police can do about a potentially dangerous person until or unless they do something which confirms that they are so, by which time, of course, it's often too little, too late.
Speaking of which ( friend's daughter ) was kicking off this morning again,so when I heard her,and how angry she sounded,I went round to see if I could speak to her,but she was in her back garden and the outside gate was bolted from the inside so I just quietly called her name and she stopped ranting.
Her front door area,which is half patterned glass, and looking through into the hall is a mish-mash of furniture used as a barricade. No sign of her little dog which barks at the least thing. Because I've seen the interior of the house,I'm at a loss what to do,if anything. I don't know how anyone on this earth can live in such a shambles. It's worse than a squatters place.
She isn't harming herself or others,just rants now and again,but the reason she won't come out of the house is because she thinks,or even knows she'll be arrested and sectioned.
My friend knows that the only time I'll call the police is if she comes knocking again about some escaped animal in the house,otherwise I can't really do anything.
She becomes violent if,and when she sees her mother. Her mother does contact her by phone as she feels obliged to with having her daughter ( arrangement by police and social services ) and they meet for coffee somewhere,but my friend remains on pins in case the daughter has an outburst,though I'd said that she wasn't likely to have a " turn " in public.
