Category Archives: Torture

Gwent Police and Senior Mental Health Managers Meeting

On 26/07/17 I wrote to Gwent Police and senior Aneurin Bevan University Health Board Trust Mental Health Nursing Manager, Perry Attwell.

Hi Perry and Gwent Police,

I have been wanting to write to you, with regard to the current status of my detainment under section of the mental health act at my home address.

I have been subjected to the mental health act since 2nd April 1997. I have never been violent towards the police nor mental health workers during the 20 years in which I have been treated. At present, I feel that there is an over-reaction to me when I am processed for sectioning under the mental health act. There are up to 50 police officers in my street during a sectioning and the whole process is very daunting both for myself and also the officers. I am transferred in the back of the police van like a common prisoner and feel that this aggravated my early stay in hospital. As I am never aggressive, I am asking you that, for any potential future assessments, we have a low key approach whereby, if necessary the police can attend in a single car and transfer me in the back of a car, humanely, and so that my mental health in the community is preserved for any potential hospital assessment. I feel that as things stand, with such a hullabaloo raised, it doesn’t assist me nor my local community in the whole process. These most recent hospitalizations have cost me my career at university and I am really struggling to rebuild my life. I am never going to be violent or troublesome and do not wish to be portrayed in a bad light in my neighborhood with a vast police presence and a seemingly violent capture ahead of any mental hospital admittances. Also, Perry Attwell has mentioned to me himself that he would be arranging for me to be transferred directly to Talygarn and not being sent to the processing unit at St Cadoc’s. I ask for a response to this letter as I wish to improve the oft fractured relations I have with this whole service as part of my processing under the Mental Health Act. Theresa May says that she wishes to improve Human Rights for mental patients and here I believe that, at grass roots, I am helping to do just that.

Regards

Wesley Gerrard

After a very long delay and much avoidance by the requested parties to attend this meeting, I finally managed to sit down and meet with mental health managers and police in an attempt to diffuse the whole of my mental health situation / saga. Here is a report I have prepared about this meeting:

After waiting impatiently for this meeting since I first tried to arrange it last July, I finally managed to get the chance to sit down with some of the local police and senior mental health management on Thursday, 26^th October 2017 at Caldicot Library. I had wanted to begin a dialogue so as to analyze exactly what was happening in both the police and mental health services during the far too often sectioning process that they have been using on me for a number of years. It seems that not twelve months can go by without me being aggressively taken out of my home or off the street and removed to Talygarn and St Cadoc’s for lengthy stays. Every time I come before an appeals court these days I win my case so it is becoming ever more annoying that the police and mental health community teams plus psychiatrists in the hospital are persisting in performing these sections. It is so disruptive to me and has continued for over 20 years and I do not intend for it to go on any longer. I am trying to nip the whole saga in the bud and this meeting, whilst I am free and comfortable at home, I felt would be a good way of starting a constructive dialogue to help end the process. Senior manager Perry Atwell, has been taking an active role during my care in recent years and he, for one, is hoping to end the repeat process of me being taken into hospital as he on the whole feels it unnecessary. Unfortunately Perry has now retired from his senior management role and Anne James has taken his place. I have known Anne for most of the 20 years for which I have been a patient.

Anne James was present at the meeting. Also, my social worker / care co-ordinator, Elen Mcelroy. Plus psychologist John Baird (about to retire). Representing Gwent police there were two WPCs. I didn’t manage to record their names although I was aware of one as she has previously processed me during a detainment. The one WPC was senior mental health representative for the whole of Gwent. The other WPC was specifically the mental health liaison officer for my local area.

The whole atmosphere was pretty hostile from the start. I explained some of my grievances. The police denied tasering me etc. They denied assaulting me in the cells. Everyone was pretty much of the steadfast opinion that there has been no wrongdoing on behalf of the powers that be and that all that had been done was necessary. Anne James admitted that in the twenty years I have NEVER once been a danger to myself or others. I have though been sectioned and get regularly aggressively sectioned on no fewer than fifty occasions. The whole criteria of being sectioned means that you have to present as a danger to yourself or others. Yet, here on record, they have admitted that this has never been the case. The police corroborated that I have never been violent to them in any way nor have I any form of criminal record.

The police stated that they have no interest in fighting crime in the local area any more. They said that nowadays their policing was to be targeted towards the policing of vulnerable people.

They said that the main reason of me being violently sectioned by them was that in their view, when they turn up to my property they feel that I am intimidating in character towards them. I explained that I was not trying to intimidate them but that based on the history of what they have been doing to me for years that I am genuinely in fear for my life when they turn up. I cannot go past a police officer or car in the street without experiencing a panic attack through fear of them. It is more them who are intimidating me and the facts and evidence will verify this.

They said that when a magistrate passes an order they are just doing their jobs. I asked as to why they were using this system which is open to corruption. I do not get processed fairly under the mental health act as it is supposed to be.

They said that the social workers involved – mainly Linda Price – have a way of perceiving that I might be perceiving something that might make me mentally ill and they apply to judges for these orders.

In other words I am being detained and sectioned and locked away based on pure speculation of Orwellian ‘thought crime’.

It is illegal, unjust and wrong and must be stopped somehow. It is no way for me to live in constant fear from these hideous people.

I have never experienced the symptoms of any of the diagnosed mental illnesses they accuse me of. I have never sought treatment from them. I never take their medications willingly. It is all done against my will and consent and by using violent force. It has simply gone on for too long.

They have said that the whole process will not be stopped, will not go away and will simply intensify in the years ahead. They want to have more access to me in the community and to lock me away more regularly.

To be honest, the whole meeting was a shambles, very much what I expect from a broken dilapidated system that has perpetually abused me for years on end.

There must be some form of political / legal solution to this.

I am hoping that someone will be able to assist me in getting a better result from this attempt to diffuse the situation and also to look at the wider picture of how this system and its actors might be detrimentally affecting the lives of other victims.

At the very least I demand a full investigation into local mental health services and practices. If they have no evidence for their persecution of me then it should surely be stopped once and for all. They will end up killing me one way or another if they are allowed to proceed and we are not some third world country with no legal process or 21^st century morals. We are supposed to be a democracy where freedom is almost guaranteed.

‘I will not cease from mental fight, nor shall my sword sleep in its hand.’

End Of Terror Meeting with Politician, Welsh Assembly Member, John Griffiths AM

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Today, after four years of campaigning, I finally met with Welsh Assembly Member, John Griffiths AM. John is my local political representative in the Welsh Assembly. In Wales, health is a devolved matter and is dealt with in the Cardiff National Assembly, rather than in parliament. Since the launch of End Of Terror five years ago, both John Griffiths and his parliamentary cohort, Jessica Morden MP, have attentively supported our needs. There has been an extensive correspondence via email and I am regularly in touch via telephone with both their offices. On no fewer than two previous occasions our scheduled public meetings have been cancelled due to me being sectioned. It is thus much overdue that I finally met in public with John, in order to thrash out the End Of Terror campaign and to seek a much-needed political solution to the issues that the #EoT movement raises. We met at 2pm on Friday, 6th January 2017, at Aroma Coffee Shop in Caldicot Town Centre.

John is well up to speed on all End Of Terror developments and in addition to our current filings with the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales, John has kindly petitioned the Welsh Minister for Health, on our behalf. In a previous post you can see some of EoT’s political agenda and the issues that we campaign for politically. – See –

REPORT ON MENTAL HEALTH IN SOUTHEAST WALES FOR JOHN GRIFFITHS AM AND JESSICA MORDEN MP

http://endofterror.org/?p=850

John listened attentively to my campaigning for well over an hour and explained to me in detail on how best to pursue my cause. He identified that in order to successfully petition the government that End Of Terror need to network more and grow its supporter base in order to achieve more political clout. He mentioned that organisations such as MIND are successful in getting the government’s attention as they speak on behalf of a multitude of campaigners. I think that at End Of Terror we shall certainly use John’s advice and try to expand our reach and involve more people. to date it has sort of been an individual’s campaign by me and I am but a lone wolf, crying in the darkness.

We spoke about the concerns I have about the local system being far too decadent and out of control. There is a definite need for psychiatrists and their employees to be reigned in. I really want there to be a system of balances and checks in place so that omnipotent psychiatrist power can be curtailed. We spoke about the need to divorce police power from mental health services and also for a fairer court system to be put in place. I want a twenty-first century mental health service and an abolishment of Victorian Bedlamist attitudes towards mental health sufferers.

There was a recognition that Big Pharma is out of control and that there is an overdependence on clinical solutions when perhaps more should be done with improving talking therapies. John mentioned the statistics that one in three people now suffer from a mental health issue. I am especially keen to erode the power of Big Pharma, the multibillion dollar fraud that drives this hideous inhumane industry.

Ideally, there will be more power for mental health advocates who at present are in a position of limbo, despite the Labour government’s introduction of them as an entity some decade or so ago.

I suggested that the Welsh government consult mental health solicitors more as these are a body of people who are intelligent and have their finger on the pulse in being able to truly assess the reality of mental health services in a holistic manner.

John said that he would try and open the doors for me with regard to consulting the mental health committees in government and we talked of the need to also meet Jessica Morden MP in future in order to make changes in Parliament itself.

I was keen to encourage John and other local politicians to visit their local hospitals, just to see for themselves how threadbare services here actually are. We must end the inhumane conditions for mental patients, wherever they are. I stressed how there must be an end to treating mental patients like animals and to rid the subhuman attitudes that divide the gulf between staff and patients.

John is keen to erode the public stigma attached to mental health sufferers and he feels that there is movement towards mental health achieving parity with physical health services across Wales. John recognises that often in the past mental health has been a ‘Cinderella service’ that has been overlooked.

John was pleased that I am currently outside of the mental health system and that I am getting on with my degree. We agreed to stay in close contact and I am certain that as my political representative, despite mental health being such a difficult area politically, that John will assist our EoT endeavours long into the future.

It was a true pleasure to have the time of such an important person in the local community and I felt pleased that my voice had been heard and I truly believe that real change can now be achieved in the field of mental health in southeast Wales and the wider world. Thank you for your time, Mr Griffiths. All the best for the future from the End Of Terror movement. Let’s all fight together for change and improvement in mental health services…

Psychiatry in the Former Soviet Union

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[Here is a post by our first international guest poster. Leoned is from the former Soviet Union and has sent us this about his mental health experiences. End Of Terror is a worldwide struggle and campaign for better rights for mental patients, wherever you may be in the world. ENJOY! Wez G, End Of Terror]

I really experienced the disaster. And it happened not in Auschwitz and not in Dachau, but in the ordinary mental hospital. It happened yet in childhood. Adults branch staff mercilessly tortured, oppressed us, disadvantaged and without this children
… One night I was awakened by the noise. Opening my eyes, I saw how two nurses are beating the boy, who lies at the window. The boy was trembling. « “Again Vovka has epileptic seizure», – someone said . “How epileptic seizure?!” – I blurted out: “But why to beat ?!” Then the nurse left Vovka for a second and turned to me: Shut up, otherwise, and you will be bad”. That nightly incident was bothering me for long time. I hoped, that gits will be punished. But all gone, as if nothing had happened.

… Once, one nurse pegged me in punishment for disobedience. And did it in a special way: the hands were were fixed to the metal corners of the bed. She had said, that she’ll unbind me, when I’ll ask forgiveness and went away. The circulation was disrupted , the hands swollen. Endure was becoming increasingly difficult. Nurse had entered in the ward and asked, I am going to ask forgivness or not. I hadn’t answer and she left.
The matter was already nearing to an evening. Soon the night shift had to come . I was very hoping, what this damned wretch will go, and the other nurse will unbind me.
However, it soon became clear, that the damned wretch stays on the night shift. She had come into the room and announced by triumphant tone: «Well, do you intend to ask forgiveness?» I wasn’t able to endure anymore and asked forgiveness from this crud as she had wanted. After that I was feeling myself horribly
humiliated.
They constantly indoctrinated us, that at any rate everything will be as they want. Any meanness, any overwhelming nightmare – everything will be as they want.

There was a teenage boy. He was suffering a severe form of epilepsy with mental retardation and was very irritable. The bastards were using this. They were provoking him intentionally and when he had come into anger – they attacked him from all sides and commited reprisal. In the time of the reprisal, when he was already tied, one nurse had gripped his genitals and furiously jerked. That nightmare still causes me stupor.
In general, intimate dignity was the subject of their special, sophisticated hostility. We were all Bug and cows, devil knows that have grown in us. It is terrible how our balls hindered them . The desire to tear off this” surplus ” again and again flied from their trashy sip. And some ones organized games such violence – chased the children and pulled their genitals and this wild nightmare took place quite openly, in front of everyone.
But the most terrible thing was chlorpromazine. The terrible effect can not be described. In what satanic laboratories was prepared this drug!? It was destroying the thinnest, most intimate strings of essence. Its action caused a complete rejection reaction. Every cell, every nerve were screaming with outrage. As long as overwhelming effect of chlorpromazine was manifesting, this reaction was completely suppressed. But as soon as this action is being weakened, the whole being is being filled with rage. But they were continuing to do chlorpromazine else and else.
There was one nurse, very greedy and cynical. She was often substituting others and was on duty multiple shifts in a row. And in order that the duty roster would pass quietly she was doing chlorpromazine to all. She was getting this with different ways. At the beginning with help on duty doctors. There were a lot of young doctors. Basically women. With them she was in familiarly relationships. She was calling a doctor by phone, a doctor was coming and appointing chlorpromazine, even not seeing for whom she appoints. Then they ceased trouble oneself to arrive. They were assigning by a phone. Then and this turned out to be unnecessary. The nurse herself was doing chlorpromazine, and the appoint was being done after, backdating. Then others followed her example .
And no salvation from this destruction remained. I was then completely destroyed! Physically and spiritually. The mind found itself in a state of complete prostration. I lost the ability to feel, resent and somehow to react. In this condition I was discharged home.
After some time, snippets of feelings began to erupt. Firstly the earlier depressed rage as a reaction on the influence of chlorpromazine. Gradually the awareness of what happened filled me. Experiences, that i endured, atrocity, vile, impunity were overflowing me. Precious moments of life, youth sped by. I was biting my lips from despair and was able to change nothing. I was dreaming about a retribution for the bastards. But they were far and i was not be able to do anything against them. And then all of uncontrollable pain fall at the man who was next. – On my poor mother. The dearest person in the world. Who gave me whole life without residue.
When I hit her all yelled in me: «What am I doing?!» And I felt, what i do not govern yourself. And i again was there.
… Again violence, merciless cynicism. Again boorish edification, that everything will be as they want. All they want, they will do – no one is decree for them . Yes, there was no hands on them. Abomination predetermine everything! Unlimited possibilities of absolute nothingness.
I could neither tolerate them, nor resist them! And again they were grinding me and scraping me with chlorpromazine. Until they destroyed all flesh and bone, every nerve, every cell. Human nature did not presuppose such exposure and did not envisage any protection against it. A human must not survive such ruinous exposure. So ruinous effects ssence not should survive.
He must die before going to happen like that. But the sadistic action of chlorpromazine overcame this last protective edge. And destroys not only the essence of life, but also the ability to die.
And I did not die then only by this terrible reason.

Leoned also has an antipsychiatry petition for you to sign:

Here’s what else I want to offer … Petition: https://goo.gl/sMnJ6y signed by much more people! Moderators facebook blocked most of the signatures! The number 1473 – is absolutely false! About it i reported not only once to recipients in UN Human Rights Committee. But they ignored all my appeals. Not on single of letter was not answered. So I suggest to you, what would you also ask them the same. Confirm that the petition actually signed a lot more people. Maybe the appeal of many people, they will not ignore.

Report on Mental Health in Southeast Wales for John Griffiths AM and Jessica Morden MP

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I have been a non-consenting patient of southeast Wales’ mental health services since 2^nd April 1997. I have almost amassed twenty years of living within this closed mental health system. I write this report with a view to enacting real change for the better for myself and other end users of the mental health services in our area.

Ideally I would like to see the Mental Health Act scrapped in parliament. I feel that it is antiquated and rooted in Victorian Bedlamism.

Psychiatry is not a science. At best it is a pseudoscience. There is little actual medical evidence for most, nearly all mental illnesses. Mental illness, unlike normal illness, cannot be scientifically assessed. If an illness cannot be scientifically diagnosed, how can it be an illness? The blood, body, mind of a schizophrenic is exactly the same as a healthy person. There are no biometric markers that indicate a sickness in someone’s mind. The point is that mental illness is not pathological. Cancer has its markers, as does AIDS. As these illnesses can be scientifically studied and examined, they can also be scientifically treated and hopefully cured. What hope is there for a cure for mental illness if the illness itself cannot be determined scientifically? This point exposes the myth that mental illness is untreatable and cannot be cured. It cannot be cured as it does not exist in the first place. I was given a diagnosis of schizophrenia in 1997. Schizophrenia is apparently an incurable disease. This is not true as it does not exist and I have never suffered the symptoms psychiatrists identify in schizophrenia. For 19 years I have been confident that I have been misdiagnosed and yet I still experience treatment and simply cannot evade the system.

Big Pharma is the driving force behind the mental health industry. For every identified illness there is often expensive treatment available from big global pharmaceutical firms. Drugs companies rarely see their share prices topple and mental health is a very profitable sector. With all this big business and money flying around I often worry about exactly how precise and effective these treatments are. There must be a more ethical means of turning a profit for Big Pharma than mental health drugs, drugs that are often used against the consent of patients.

Treatment against consent is my biggest bugbear in psychiatry. In every branch of medicine the patient has a choice bar psychiatry. If someone falls ill they may choose to consult a healthcare professional or doctor. The doctor can then diagnose illness and offer treatment with a view to curing the illness. At any stage the patient is within his or her rights to refuse the doctor’s advice and to consult elsewhere or simply ignore the treatment. Often illness is an individual matter and if the treatment doesn’t feel right to a patient then why should that patient continue the course of treatment. How many of our medicine cabinets are full of half-used prescriptions of painkillers and antibiotics or the like? In mental health as treatment against consent is condoned and used, patients’ rights are eroded. We move out of a realm of doctors and patients and into a realm of torture and torturer. Treatment against consent is torture plain and simple. It was used in the days of Bedlam, in the Victorian Institutions and has been a cornerstone of the short history of psychiatry and mental hospitals. Yes, some more barbaric, outlandish practices (with no scientific basis) such as lobotomy have been ceased, but treatment against consent continues to this day and with our modern technology and advancements in science chemical lobotomies occur on a daily basis through the use of some of psychiatry’s arsenal. We are talking drugs such as Clozaril, depot injections, Risperidone, Olanzapine.

It is often argued that psychiatrists are dealing with the most disturbed of patients. People always use Peter Sutcliffe in Broadmoor as an extreme example and say how this abhorrent man who has committed abhorrent crimes needs to be treated against his consent. Unfortunately, the vast majority of service users aren’t Peter Sutcliffe, yet they get tarred with the same brush and treatment against consent affects this majority of patients far worse than they do Sutcliffe and other extreme cases. Even in the case of abhorrent psychiatric criminals, these people are human beings with human rights. The choice of treatment and the right to consent to treatment is an absolutely fundamental human right and is part of what separates us as an intelligent species from the animal world. Treatment against consent fosters a concentration camp mentality. It is Nazism, plain and simple, extreme far right use of force to disrupt nature. It is man against the environment in its most absolute ultimate form. Man mistreating other man using torture and chemicals. So much of psychiatry is rooted in eugenics and this is a distant historical archaic fixation that needs to be properly eradicated in order for human society to function properly,

To set this treatment against consent in its context I give you my 19 year case as an extreme example. I have never accepted my diagnosis, nor felt mentally ill. I therefore reject treatment. When under section of the Mental Health Act you lose your right to consent. From Day 1 on my healthcare plan I have been forcibly injected against my consent, with drugs unknown to me and only through experience and research have I discovered what these drugs do. When you refuse tablets in a mental health environment they will turn to injections to guarantee that you take the treatment. They are allowed to use force and in my case have done that or always used the veiled threat of force to get me to take down my trousers so they can inject my thigh or backside. By law, mental health professionals can freely assault, restrain and drug with hardcore, mind and body –altering chemicals with no repercussions. If this happened in a war environment – let’s say Aleppo, there would be international outcry and it would be seen as a war crime, yet it occurs on a daily basis inside British mental hospitals, and worse, with new CTO legislation, also in our communities. Depot injections that I am allergic to have caused me to have a severe hiatus hernia. This makes me projectile vomit all my meals and every morning I start the day puking. It was brought on by depot injections against my consent and the NHS is powerless to stop psychiatrists doing this to me and so my hiatus hernia cannot be treated and cured so I have to live with a permanent disability caused by treatment against consent.

What if treatment against consent was outlawed? It would force the mental health services to adapt greatly. For a start, less emphasis would be on Big Pharma and the medications it produces. We would move away from clinical psychiatry and into the realm of more natural, talking therapies. I’m not saying people should all be freed from mental hospitals, just that the emphasis on drugs would be less. People could choose to be unmedicated and if deemed ill, remain inpatients, but unmedicated ones by choice. When a lay person thinks of a psychiatrist they think that these people sit down and chat with you for hours about your problems and your childhood etc. This is a common misperception. Psychiatrists tend to be just clinical and rely on prescribing drugs. It is psychologists, who aren’t necessarily medically trained, who perform the talking therapies one associates with US Sitcoms and films etc. Psychologists won’t offer you medications. They aren’t doctors so lack prescribing power. They will recommend ways and means of dealing with your problems and often over a period of time will assist you in coping with your problems by identifying root causes and disruptive patterns of behavior. Psychology is a buzz subject academically these days with university departments full, yet try seeing a psychologist on the NHS. You will always find a psychiatrist. They are funded by Big Pharma. I have been on the waiting list to see a psychologist for over ten years. I am deeply embedded in the mental health system with regular hospitalizations yet cannot get to see a psychologist. Aneurin Bevan UHB simply employ too few psychologists and those they do are fully overworked and do not have time for their clientele. The local NHS invest in psychiatry and virtually ignore talking therapies yet it is in these areas where psychiatry and its relevant research are most accurately close to being a proper genuine science. We are supposed to be moving away from clinical mental health environments and towards ‘care in the community’. It is imperative that talking therapies get adequate financial coverage and are accorded a valued place within the therapeutic setup, especially in our local area.

Another great area for improvement locally is another variety of talking therapy in use in mental hospitals, that of occupational therapy. The occupational therapy has as its aim the goal of readying an inpatient for reintegration into the community and outside world. They will work on basic skills, life skills, things one would normally do on the outside and from within a hospital environment an occupational therapist shall aim to get you back to full healthy working order, enough so you can function independently in the real world. Two years ago I met with Judith Paget, Chief Executive, Aneurin Bevan UHB, and in this meeting I emphasized how I disliked the cutbacks that were being made within her system on occupational therapy. To me, as a longstanding mental inpatient, I found the most value in the hospital to be in occupational therapy. Occupational therapy made me feel normal. Whether it be a day trip to the beach, cooking a lunchtime meal for fellow patients, doing a morning crossword or just simple arts and crafts, occupational therapy is vital in an inpatient environment and indeed in out patient aftercare. Yet, consistently over the past twenty years the OT budget has been cut, staff have been laid off and services and end users suffer as a result. On at least three occasions over the past 3 years there has been absolutely zero occupational therapy at all in Talygarn. When you combine the fact that you can’t see a psychologist or engage in other meaningful talking therapies, it seems that the local system is over-reliant on psychiatry and Big Pharma meds. It’s how to pass your time in the hospital system. One aims to be as active as possible and all It seems you can physically do as a patient is sit and smoke cigarettes. It’s no wonder that drug use is becoming ever more prevalent inside mental hospitals as people are genuinely bored and need to occupy their time in some way. Judith Paget incidentally promised to get me in a consultation meeting with the heads of OT for the Trust and to suitably increase funding in their direction. Instead she brushed me aside, ignored her promise and cut back more funds and saved more money by binning OT which she obviously deemed a non-essential luxury.

In general, human rights for mental patients need to be improved. I worry about the scrapping of the human rights Act and how it will affect mental patients. There are a few safeguards I’ve noticed in use in the tribunal courts which do protect certain interests of patients. In general, there is a massive stigma attached to mental illness and perhaps the worst part of being diagnosed and treated is how the community and society change to treating you as an individual. It is a difficult period for patients and their families and friends. This is made worse by the massive stigma and misunderstandings associated with mental health. I think that it all begins with the vast divide between staff and patients within hospital systems. Too many fundamental freedoms and rights are taken away from inpatients. If one is being treated like a subhuman one will feel like a subhuman. Mental hospitals become, not healthcare environments,but punishment centres. They are prisons for the disaffected. Most patients I have spoken to who have experience of both the prison service and mental hospitals actually prefer prisons as they have more freedom there and it is more like normal life inside. They can have jobs and tvs and do what they wish during association hours. Mental hospitals, and you must try visiting Talygarn and St Cadoc’s to see this, are dark and dismal places often threadbare with so little to do for patients. Facilities are dilapidated, often broken and rarely repaired. If mental health is to be treated on a parity with physical health then surely the environment of the hospital can be improved. Rights are taken away. Mobile phones are confiscated, or mobile phone chargers. Cigarette lighters are confiscated. You can’t drink caffeinated coffee. Takeaways are banned. Are these rules fit for patients or fit for prisoners?

As the last twenty years have gone by I have noticed how freedom within the community, within the hospital itself, has slowly been tightened up. Twenty years ago, patients would wake in St Cadoc’s, have a cooked breakfast, do the crossword together in OT, and disappear to Caerleon town to trawl around the pubs all day. You could freely walk around the beautiful countryside grounds and vistors could come and go as pleased. Nowadays, you are more likely to walk onto the ward after some leave, forced to submit to a full body search and have a breathalyzer to test you for any signs of alcohol. Your visitors have to stay outside the entire ward and can only come at certain times. You cannot simply walk out into the grounds for a bit of fresh air. These hospitals are now heavily policed by the staff that have become warders as opposed to nurses. As smoking bans enter the fray, staff can no longer socially smoke with patients and talk about their problems. It adds to further separation between staff and patient and ultimately when the smoking ban is enforced life for an involuntary smoking patient will be a nightmare as they will be forced to quit on the spot and that is unhealthy. If the aim is to get patients into the community they need to be able to have trust built in that community from as early a stage as possible. Mental Health systems should be about lifting barriers, not erecting them. There is enough stigma in the real world without stigma inside the hospital system.

There is a major problem in justice for mental patients. The current tribunal system is very unfair and far too heavily weighted in favor of psychiatrists. For a start one of the three board members of a Tribunal is a psychiatrist. There is an unhealthy backlog of delay in the Tribunal system meaning that you often have to wait several months under treatment (against consent) in hospital following your appeal being lodged prior to the Tribunal sitting. Solicitors are hard pressed and often very impotent in terms of what actual assistance they can give you. The hospitals are full of people living in hope about their appeals yet on average only about 5% of appeals are ever successful for patients. I feel that similar to the criminal justice system, prior to being locked away you should get your chance in front of a court for them to decide if the psychiatrist is right in saying you need to be detained under section. It is only reasonable for this to happen.
Police have become a lot more involved in mental health – Cells are being used to hold patients prior to them being transported to hospital. Often patients’ first contact with services is via the police, police transportation being used instead of ambulances and handcuffs and, worse still, tasers are routinely used on mental patients. The last thing you expect as you enter a healthcare environment is to be shot in the chest by a police marksman. I have been the victim of a taser attack in my own home and it severely traumatised me. Again, are we treating health or is this just a form of social control for disciplining the marginalized and disaffected.

Police have no role in healthcare. When you need to use the police as a patient they will ignore you and they routinely ignore some of the worst crimes perpetuated by staff in mental hospitals. The training of the police re mental health needs to be completely overhauled and they need to distance themselves as a system as a whole from the mental health sector if we are ever to achieve parity between mental and physical healthcare.

Training needs to be revamped and brought into the twenty-first century. Antiquated ideologies need to be erased. I find that most mental health workers appear to have a glazed sense of brainwash about them. They are conditioned into distancing themselves from the mentally ill, into building barriers. They are oversold the pharmaceutical benefits of the drugs and are misled, like doctors, by drug company marketing material, false claims and the vast profits that multi-billion dollar industry generates.

Lastly, does it really need to be said that the system should not be employing criminals. Often psychiatry and the industry attracts some dark people in its workforce. There are far to many with brutal prison-warder type mentalities who get their kicks out of oppressing others. And psychiatrists are not always the sanest and most reasonable people. I was appalled to learn that my psychiatrist of two years had a history of child sex offences. Dr Darryl Watts was employed by Aneurin Bean UHB after spending 30 hours a week surfing child pornography on the internet whilst working as a psychiatrist in Bristol. He was convicted, struck off and the later employed to work in a position of responsibility. He is unfit to judge the sanity of others in my opinion and this is a clear scandal.

For more see http://endofterror.org

End Of Terror Under Attack – Repression Inside Talygarn

The authorities – local mental health workers and Gwent Police – are not happy with End Of Terror exposing their misdeeds. When I first started the website there was an immediate clampdown and I was ushered off into the Mental Health system. I later understood why my then Doctor, Dr Darryl Watts, was unhappy about being published on the internet as he had been convicted of child sex offences. It is convenient for the authorities to mask their repression and cover up End Of Terror. I think it important though, to expose this hidden system to the world and I certainly, over the years, have taken much refuge in the fact that End of Terror exists. It is a crutch of support to me.

2015 was a horrific year for me. I was taken into the hospital on no fewer than four occasions. It took me out of my undergraduate university studies at Cardiff University and set my life back again. After nineteen years in the mental health system it came as no real shock and i am used to dealing with the State disrupting my life. It is an asset to be resilient and to forge on with life plans in spite of the constant mental health harassment and its infringement upon my liberty.

During the last hospitalisation I was detained from July 2015 through to November. I was sat at home, minding my own business, doing work on the internet for my music business and out of the blue Dr Basu turned up with the police and a magistrate-signed warrant to remove me for assessment. I had done nothing whatsoever and was just carted off and incarcerated. Basu proceeded to give me the maximum dose of CloPixol Depot injection, something to which it has been proved I am allergic to. I had two stints on the secure PICU (Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit) Beechwood, St. Cadoc’s, Caerleon, for dissent on Talygarn Ward, Griffithstown County Hospital, Pontypool, where I was detained for the bulk of my stay.

My notoriety as a patient precedes me on Talygarn and on the ward I have some formidable enemies, usually within the nurse management structure. People who are constantly vying for their own selfish climb up the ladder whose disdain for patients is most cruel. I name Keith Sullivan, deputy ward manager, Jayne Hughes, former ward manager and Paul Hanna, Deputy Nurse Manager, to be among the most appalling of these ladder-climbing despots. They spend their days in a twisted Machiavellian power struggle, never hesitating to have a pop at patients using any means at their disposal to make their victims’ stays in hospital less comfortable. They are the antithesis of good nursing and miss the fundamental point that they are there to serve the patients’ needs. These are the prison warders whose radical oppression of patients and their rights truly epitomise the struggle within mental hospitals – the very examples of why there is such a divide between staff and patients.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_Yayz5o-l0

One of the scariest movements within mental health hospitals is the inevitable ban they seek to impose on smoking. Anti-smoking lobbies have successfully campaigned across the board of the NHS for smoking to be restricted. Due to the enforced nature of sectioning, where patients are detained against their consent, smoking is still, on the whole, allowed inside mental hospitals. Smoking is one of the few things you can actually do to while away your time and most mental patients are heavy smokers. It upset me to see during my stay on Talygarn, that the inside smoking room had been closed and patients had been relegated to the garden area. It is one step closer to the achieved goal of a complete ban. Lighters were confiscated and the nurses had to be called to light your cigarette. This is one undignified way of removing patient’s human rights, but not the major subject of this article. I dread to think what it will be like in the future to be detained and forced to quit smoking instantly. There will be uproar within the services and most patients will struggle to come to terms with the ban.

Since the advent of mobile phones, patients have found new ways of staying in touch with the outside world during their incarceration. Although some parts of the system do deny access to mobiles eg.PICU, most acute wards allow patients to use their phones, although they often confiscate them at night and refuse patients the use of their chargers. This leads to a clandestine smuggling operation for patients whereby contraband chargers exchange hands on the ward so that everyone can top up their battery. Nurses spend their days lighting cigarettes and searching bedrooms for hidden mobile phone chargers – hardly constructive medical care?

Smart phones with internet are especially useful and to maintain social media accounts and have internet access is a godsend, especially to me. I have been able to update my EndOfTerror from within the confines of the establishment and being able to reach out to followers gives a certain empowerment. Being locked away from society is lonely and frustrating and although not freedom, internet access allows a certain maintenance of your outside life. Messages of encouragement from friends and family are invaluable to your disrupted mindset and as a patient the therapeutic value of support on the outside is immeasurable.

Resisting as ever, during my stay, I was actively tweeting on the @endofterror timeline. It’s rather difficult to do full blog posts from a mobile phone and tweeting is a handy alternative, even if the tweets just serve as a personal reminder of incidents once one gets back to the outside world. I regularly study social media activity of mental patients during detainment through online mental patient friends and although often disturbing in content I know that I am not alone in seeking solace through social media use during a section. Each individual has their own methods of reaching out.

The Indian Dr Basu and his underling, the Iranian Dr Al-Hasani, were being particularly virulent in their disdainful treatment of me. They simply failed to recognise me as a human being with human rights and used the treatment against consent to the maximum. They frustrated me by denying me any leave at all and I was forced to resort to criticising their actions on twitter. They were both monitoring my twitter use and the End Of Terror website and threatened me saying that I was not allowed to post anything about them or their names. This infringes upon my freedom of speech and expression and I simply refuse to bow down to fascism and change my policies of exposing the fault-lines of the mental health system. Prior to hospitalisation Dr Basu had been stalking me online and although he denies this, I caught him, through analytic software, studying my Linkedin and invading my personal space on the web. This adds to my conspiracy theory of how the actions of psychiatrists are preordained and not rooted in healthcare. My enemies will pursue me despite me having good health. The voice of dissent will be punished by the system and EndOFTerror is a nightmare scenario for my pursuers.

I started using the smartphone camera to take some visual images of the hospital surroundings. Most people fortunately never get to view the bare oppressive inside walls of a psychiatric hospital so it helps in exposing the realities inside. One night in the smoking area, where we were jovially listening to some music, I took a photo of some fellow patients, with, of course, their permission. I posted this photo on my personal networks (not end of terror). The psychiatric nurses and doctors who were glued to my social networks, looking for an excuse to pounce, did just this. They cited privacy rules and said that I had broken confidentiality rules and mobile phone policies and they confiscated my Iphone. I was up in arms. I said I would delete the offending photo but could not see what harm I had done. In the real world I am always updating my Facebook, Twitter and Instagram with all my escapades. Why should this be any different during a stay in hospital?

After many complaints the nurses came to a compromise and returned the mobile phone but they decided to do this with a twist and use an experimental policy. This experiment was horrendous to me and signified the extreme measures of state repression that little Hitlers within mental health services are prepared to use. I was allowed ten minutes of access to my mobile phone per shift and this access was to be supervised by a nurse. They wanted the inner workings of End Of Terror and were prepared to intimidate me into revealing my personal use of the internet. Nurses were quite uncomfortable with doing this and many expressed this to me. However, there are nurses who just relish the sort of power this experiment brings and jump at the chance of subverting patients’ rights. I found that my internet use was to be closely scrutinised and used in ways to justify my mental illness. Everything I did online found its way into my notes and was judged as mental illness. It’s just a total invasion of privacy and when you hear about internet repression in far off places such as China, to see this obsessive monitoring occurring in the UK just proved to me the State’s obsessiveness with surveillance.

Pretty soon, the ban on my phone use became compounded. I am a translation student at Cardiff University and use social media and the internet to maintain contact with a host of international friends and business associates across the world. The nurses started to complain as they could not understand my social media messages when I spoke in a foreign language. Therefore I was banned from speaking foreign languages and banned from internet contact with anyone outside of the UK. It is bad enough being prevented from studying your Translation degree, being forced to mss key lectures and examinations while you are subjected to the human experimentation of mental health. These authorities were now dictating to me that use of foreign language was a mental illness. I was being treated for my education skills and prevented in every way possible of exercising my study mindset. I found this to be ignorant, racist and typical of a stupid mentality. Why should my ways be changed to suit my captors?

Is it mentally ill and evil to contact people in the outside world and to use foreign languages? I was disappointed with the recent Brexit vote that demonstrated a democratic dislike for the EU and its foreign characteristics yet inside the mental hospital I witnessed some of the sickness of the system and how ignorant people could be. Right wing tendencies and oppression are key to the success of the mental health movement and where people have the right to exercise their power, I feel they often abuse this power, typical of the little Hitlers that so plague our fragmented society. Be it a police officer with a trigger-happy taser or a racist nurse, these people love mental health systems and what their roles in society entail. I feel sick that people can actively monitor my personal correspondence – most of the time it being innocuous contact with friends and family. I was forced to submit and to be honest dreaded my ten minute sessions on the phone. In a locked ward surrounded by cameras monitoring your every move, with your body given up to non-consensual mind-altering drugs, not being able to set foot on the grass or go to the pub for a pint, or even walk to the local shop, I felt that the monitoring of me could not possibly extend any further. Why does psychiatry have to be so intrusive? Do they really need to know every last detail of a patient? If they ever did anything useful with the information then I might be able to understand the medical necessity of information-gathering. However, the information is always misused and leads ultimately to further oppression.

Eventually, the whole charade cracked. While the nurses were running around lighting cigarettes, hunting down mobile phone chargers and peering over my shoulder at my Facebook messages, they obviously neglected their key role and jobs – that of nursing. An unmonitored patient slipped away to his room and hung himself with his dressing gown belt. Priorities should be given to prevent suicides and it is a nurse’s role to stop this happening. Suicides are sad affairs for all witnesses. I’d been close to the dead patient, sorting him out some tobacco and keeping his spirits high as he came to terms with his own incarceration yet he had gone ahead and done what he intended. All I did during my ten minutes of mobile phone usage that day, was to post an RIP message on my Facebook to my personal friends. It asks you how you feel on Facebook when you post a status. I was feeling sad about the suicide and posted so. Whenever somebody dies who I know, I tend to do a simple RIP message on Facebook. In the modern world of social media, many do this and I believe it is a key way of us dealing with grief as a society. The nurse who was monitoring me freaked out, tried seizing my phone and although I did post my status, I was reported to senior staff and my phone was permanently confiscated. Senior management were called to endorse this ultimate ban and despite my protests, Nursing manager Perry Attwell confirmed that my social media usage was not to be tolerated and the phone would remain in the possession of the Trust.

I do not know where monitoring and surveillance in society will ultimately lead but remember that the insides of mental hospitals where there is a captive population are very often where the most disturbing ideas in society are first trialled. Oppression begins in mental hospitals and they serve as a mirror to the realities and horrors of the real world.

Police Brutality and Mental Health – PART 3

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I’ve written two articles already on policing and mental health. The impact of this particular episode still hasn’t quite sunk in. Bang out of order is obviously one of my judgements. Equally, writing this blog, just knowing firsthand exactly what the British police are capable of, means that my life is in potential danger as something equally as bad or worse could quite easily happen at any time.

I was just reading a fellow DJ’s Facebook about returning home to a key UK airport to see heavily armed police officers ‘greeting’ people as they got off the plane. OK. We may be on whatever alert, but I do passionately disagree with the arming of the police. Unless laws are passed for the general public to have the right to bear arms, it is unfair to arm a civilian force. Army and other military services, by all means, weapons are a necessity. But not the police. They do not have responsible enough a mentality to be given the easy power over life and death that a trigger brings. I speak from experience.

If you actually ever look at the mental health act, when you are admitted to a hospital or sectioned, you are supposed to go through a process of assessment. There are balances and checks in place. I do believe that the process is unfair as it stands. However, over the years the mental health system has been opening up to allow the police more and more involvement and they more or less have a free reign today. The ‘Place Of Safety’ in the legislation allows them to use their premises as mental hospital holding cells. As soon as I heard of the police being armed with tasers I was against the idea. I don’t believe that any form of weapon can be safely deemed as providing non-lethal force, in particular a ballistic weapon. it is no surprise to me that there are so many deaths caused by tasers.

I was spending the evening in my home studio, making music. I use Ableton and have various MIDI instruments that plug into it. I was having a quiet jam on my keyboard and laying down the foundations of a new tune. It’s quite a creative process, making music and is very tranquil and relaxing as a producer, although repetitively listening to the same beat patterns as you build up a track from scratch can be frustrating for other people to listen to. My missus has to put up with a lot of this. On that particular evening, she decided to pop out to see her friend down the road. Nicola went and I carried on making music. I powered down the studio for a while and went out to the kitchen to grab a bite to eat. I was in my dressing gown, as I often am at home. As I returned from the kitchen into my living room, all of a sudden I felt a jolt and these wires seemed to be coming out of nowhere at me. I looked down and I had some sharp metallic objects in my heart, with cables attached that were whirling around and heading for me. I immediately, AND I MEAN IMMEDIATELY, ripped at my chest to remove these objects. The wires came flying out and scattered away, off to my left. I had thought I was alone in the flat. I couldn’t get these metal rods out of my chest. Suddenly there was a clatter at the front door as it was being forced open. I ran over to the door, opened it quickly as the intruders were trying to break in and strongly slammed it shut on the intruders and double locked it. They couldn’t get in.

I still had the metal in my chest and wanted it out. It was in my heart, two tiny rods of aluminium-looking, man-made material, with bits of plastic and other junk attached. I knew who the intruders were now, as obviously, I had seen them when I shut the door. It was the police. They now had a battering ram to the door and were attempting to force it; yet couldn’t. They couldn’t muster the strength. There was a hell of a noise coming from them. Lots of shouting and panic. I was alone in my home and I have to say, was truly scared. This was a life or death situation. I took and air rifle pellet in my backside as a kid but this was the first time I had been shot with a gun. I finally just ripped at the metal and they were barbed, fish-hook like prongs that were retaining the rods in my chest. They were almost impossible to remove. I realised that it was a taser that had been fired at me and was thanking my lucky stars that I had managed to rip the wires out prior to the post-impact electric shock being discharged. The idiots had not only randomly shot an unarmed man, minding his own business, in his own home, but they had also misfired their own weapon. I didn’t have any weapons in my home to defend myself and was left to the mercy of what happened when they eventually got in. Alone, with no witnesses, the panic set in. I had removed the metal as best I could and realised that I wasn’t going to die from the first shot. Blood was gushing out of the open wound and it bloody well stung, like never before. It’s a truly horrible feeling, reminded me of how you feel inside your body, under the cosh of the biological weapons they use in mental health treatment. It’s just that this was exterior, on the body, and not inside.

I decided that I needed to inform the public in order to protect myself. I was still trying to figure out how they had shot the weapon. They weren’t inside the house. Either they had fired through the open front window or had fired through the letter box. Either way, there was no warning, either in human voice or any noise at all. I knew they had tried to assassinate me and I just didn’t want to be a random statistic of police murder. I looked out the front room window and, there was, I’d estimate, about 50 or so police officers. All in uniform, milling around. I screamed at the top of my lungs: “HELP!!!” “I’ve Been Shot!” – I felt that I had to let people know. In a life or death situation you have tremendous power in your voice. Despite having a serious traumatic injury to my chest, I shouted louder than I’d ever shouted before. I decided that I would scream the neighbourhood, the whole town, down. I thought of every person I knew nearby, and others in the locality further afield. I was even screaming to friends far away in London, lest my voice should carry as far as it seemed to be able to. Members of the public started to gather and the police were sort of shepherding them around and trying to clear the vicinity. I knew they were up for another pop at me that night. Someone suggested that I jump out of the window but I didn’t really fancy flying out of the flats into a bunch of armed police for obvious safety reasons. There were witnesses now to me being alive. I decided to go off to my bedroom and try to relax in bed. They were still bashing hell out of the door and it would give at any moment. I felt that even the most heartless copper ain’t just going to shoot an unarmed man, naked in his own bed, in cold blood. I lay in bed, pretty sure that my time on this planet was coming to a close. I heard the front door give and was just hoping that the duvet would protect against any further taser shots. I’ve taken a full mains electric shock before, whilst setting up DJ equipment, and electric shocks are not pleasant. Your heart has a weakness after one full shock and is never quite the same.

It took ages for them to open the bedroom door after entering the building. I could hear loads of noise. Movement of people. Suddenly a plastic shield came through the door and hordes of riot police stormed into my bedroom, their shiny metal helmets peaking above the heavy-duty reinforced, hardened plastic riot shields. I’d never been in a riot or demonstration so had only ever seen riot police on TV or in photographs or internet videos. They surrounded the bed with their shields protecting them completely. I was just glad that they hadn’t shot me and I couldn’t see any weapons. I just stayed calm and quiet and then about 8 of them just dived on me, riots shields down, and were trying to squash / suffocate me. They just bounced off me really and it was a non-effective whatever-it-was-supposed-to-be. They all seemed pretty much in a right panic. Eventually, one broke the silence and I realised he was Scottish.

I said ‘Hi, Are you Scottish?’

He said ‘Yes’

I said ‘Where are you from’.

He said ‘Glasgow’

I said ‘Ah, you’ve come a long way.’ Do you support Rangers or Celtic?’

He said, rather proudly, ‘Rangers’

Being a Liverpool fan, there are a lot of links between Rangers and Celtic and our club. I just started having a conversation with this guy from out of town as his mates continued to act silly with their weapons etc. I have to be fair to this guy. He did look a bit shocked and disillusioned with the whole situation.

Someone else took command as they did some sort of hold on me and started lifting me out of bed. They have manoevres, these riot police and I was surrounded by large plastic shields at all times. As I was naked they decided it was appropriate to get me dressed. It’s a surreal experience, I can tell you. Watching a bunch of armed, grown men with plastic shields and helmets and sparkly badges with ‘police’ on, fish around your bedroom, while you’re naked, boxed in by plastic, with blood pissing out of your chest from a misfired taser. I explained to the guy, that the Bermuda Shorts he dug out of my drawer. just didn’t fit me. I hadn’t worn them since I was about 12. I was trying to help the situation. stay calm, release the pressure. Talk to a copper on duty though and they think you’re trying to be smart. They got heavy handed and were forcing me into the shorts. In the end, as we had now shuffled into my living room, a couple of them realised that the shorts just weren’t going on and it wasn’t the best thing to do to a man in his own home, forcibly dress him into child’s clothes. I just kept saying softly, ‘just let me put the shorts on’ They were petrified and trying to cover up what was obviously quite an extreme incident. Someone managed to fetch another pair of shorts from back in the bedroom. I was getting frustrated because they were in my living room causing havoc. They broke my computer system, my studio monitor speakers and ripped all my wiring out. Just out-and-out criminal vandals. I cannot believe how inhumane these people are. Eventually I had a pair of surf shorts on. It was a freezing cold night. I was bleeding, been shot in the chest, attacked by riot police and now I was to be dragged into the middle of my neighbourhood in the dead of night in a pair of surf shorts. Not very practical, Mr Policeman, really? Simple health training. Normally when someone is shot, first aid is applied, especially if the weapon has, perhaps, misfired? They seemed more keen on removing the remnants of the taser in my front room than anything else. Bloody wires everywhere.

If their idea of helping a shot human is to help him get dressed in his old shorts, then they really need to go back to the drawing board. Emergency services? it’s no wonder we have so many bloody disasters in this country. They are incompetent. It’s just inappropriate. How are this lot supposed to deal with an actual riot where the people are actually committed to achieving their aims? They don’t even understand how to get dressed? I can just picture police across the country waking up every morning for mummy to slip on their pants for them and help them get to the potty toilet. They couldn’t blow out a candle with a fire extinguisher: the idiots!

Outside the property, and there were lots of people. The fear for my life hadn’t quite dissipated. Obviously, when you are being kidnapped after being shot, the fear doesn’t erode at all really. Until I get home to my bedroom after the whole charade, however much time it takes, everything is by force, and everyone can be regarded as an unnatural encounter.

Back of the van. I just zoned out in the van. The pain in my heart was great and I know that I was at risk of heart failure. I was not aware of any rulebook to guide you from, when you are shot. It doesn’t help that you aren’t getting immediate medical assistance and I will be eternally grateful to the police for that. Handcuffed (incidentally they went on back in the bedroom – yet still they had to crush me with the riot shields), I was banged into the back of a van. A long time to get going as they were doing their ‘hush, hush, nice police in front of the public operation’ to ease the crowded streets into believing that they were somehow doing some form of fitful employment and public service.

By the time we reached our destination, I just felt like it would be safer to feign unconsciousness and just to fall out of the back of the van when the doors opened, just in case there were any surprises awaiting. It’s a complete bastard, having an open chest wound with shrapnel remnants in it and being handcuffed behind your back, unable to tend to your own wounds. We were at the Royal Gwent hospital in Newport and I was wheel-chaired in to a new little corner of it, shall we say ‘the police’s special room’. The Royal Gwent is a good hospital and I’ve had top notch treatment there over the years. All the time. Except on this occasion. In ‘police corner’ you get junior nurses who do not understand how to use expensive heart monitoring equipment. You get crazed coppers running the whole show. I do not believe that I met a trained doctor throughout the whole incident. It was like some sort of twisted perverted medical saga. They seemed to be getting some sort of thrill by pretending that they were actual nurses. There were two male police officers, quite young, probably the same age as myself, maybe a little younger. One of them was quiet and didn’t speak. the other just kept repeatedly, in a sort of spaced out drone-like mantra, saying. ‘Hi Wesley, I’m your friend!’ He repeated it about 300 times that night. I might have possibly seen the guy once before on a police mental hospital kidnap operation, But i have never spoken to him at all in my life. Never once met him. I don’t know who the hell he is. He’s not my friend. Talk about stalkers! I’m repeatedly asking him to un-cuff me so that I can get medical attention and at the very least tend to myself. I just thought this guys is just so unbelievably sick that I don’t know how I am going to every have faith in the human species again. They were just sort of mincing around, waiting for me to die, in some way of ‘natural causes’. I was detained at this hospital for seemingly forever. then i got bundled back in the van. no medical care at all. Nor medical staff to explain anything and i was just being rotated around by two clueless policemen in full uniform with handcuffs on and some gaping wounds which by now and ceased oozing of their own accord.

It was the short journey to their gaff now. At this stage I was just hoping they’d take me to St. Cadocs’. Whereas, at St. Cad’s there are plenty of ex-police officers on the nursing staff, at least they don’t parade around in uniform and I actually know some of the nursing staff quite well, enough to have a sensible occasional human-to-human conversation.

Back in ‘police world’ I was escorted into Newport Central and, finally, the cuffs were removed. I just couldn’t believe I was alive. My body was numb with shock and I had shooting pains in every direction. I felt never more in need of a medic in my entire life. I was put in a cell with no camera and weirdly they left the door open. The same two police stayed outside the cell all night and I was just walking back and for, in and out of the cell, trying to speak to them, as when they are on their own turf they settle right down and are far less weird than in public. I just tried persuading them to just call it a day and take me home to my missus who used to be a nurse and we could all forget about the little incident earlier. Obviously police don’t quite grasp the reality or the impact they have on people and it was a no-go zone.

I knew I wasn’t getting medical attention and it is imperative that you somehow calm down. I eventually got an hour of snooze on the cell bench. I wasn’t keen on having an open door as I slept,. Especially with two police outside. After all that had occurred. But, survival is survival, I guess.

Next day, transfer to Beechwood secure ward, St. Cadoc’s Hospital, Caerleon. And this is the point where I object, based on what has come to light to me in the past month. I am handed over by the police to a police-employed forensic psychiatrist who will treat me for mental illness against my consent for an indeterminable period. Dr Darryl Watts (see full details here… ) sectioned me under the mental health act immediately. I had zero physical medical attention for my injuries., this man is a convicted felon. Now it’s all very well me banging on about his child sex convictions. I am not a child and we live in a world where there are paedophiles. Deal with it. What alarms me is, that, when you read the articles about his sick habits in the papers, it isn’t just child porn he fetishes about. He is into extreme violence and some weird conspiracy sort of nonsense. He is a dangerous man, who is unreformed as he has never served any time and been punished for his convictions. He does not understand remorse and is a danger to society.. A long time after this whole escapade, I was told off the record by an off-duty policeman, in the knowing loop, that Dr Darryl Watts had ordered the whole taser operation on me.

To see these police charge into my home, rip my life apart another time, attempt to murder me and realise they are all doing it on the orders and advice of a 30 hour a week child porn addict….. Where indeed does this place the British legal system? Yes, Watts won several hearings again this time in Mental Health Review Tribunal Courts. What sort of world is it that I can be judged ill in the head when these people are just not natural at all, nor human?

A long time has passed since then and I’m recovering from the scars. I still wonder the trajectory of the weapon. I’d love to come face to face with whoever pulled the trigger. See what sort of person that they actually are. Not that I’ll ever know.

On a quiet note, just to bring some rationale back, to myself as much as anything…. I can remember when I was taught how to use firearms. On a farm in New Zealand, my mother’s family farm, out in the country, outside Wanganui: My Uncle Johnny took me out hunting. He taught me how to use a shotgun and I took a rabbit – they are pests on the farmland in NZ. It’s a dark feeling post-trigger, and seeing an animal die in front of your eyes is a sight to behold. Shortly after taking kill I was back, aiming. I had a lovely pretty bird, way up in the tops of the trees in the telescopic sight. My Uncle just checked to see what I was aiming at. He asked me softly and i described the bird – its bright plumage, green and beautiful;. He said, ‘Stop Wez’ – ‘don’t fire!’. I had half slipped the trigger and it was on the point of a shot. i relaxed my finger and asked him “why?”‘ “oh, that’s a native pigeon and they are protected birds under Maori law and it is illegal to kill them. You’ll get into trouble if you shoot that one.” I learnt the difference between a fluffy rabbit and a native pigeon and it was a wonderful day. The farm cats feasted on the rabbit and i got to keep its tail.

Guns are dangerous, people, and the police should not be carrying them, certainly not for medical purposes.

Coffee Cup Syndrome

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Here is another letter of complaint about a Dr Darryl Watts incident. this complaint resides with a senior nursing manager (Perry Attwell) at Aneurin Bevan University Health Board. It shows how trivial medical staff can be in the mental health system.

Hi Perry,

Further to our telephone conversation, I am writing you an email, as requested, with Karen Newman cc’ed.

I would like to request that you reinvestigate the incident which I already reported to you regarding the acuphase I endured at the hands of Dr Darryl Watts. I found this particular incident to be one of the worst incidences of malicious medical malpractice I have ever witnessed and believe that it clearly indicates Watts’ un-reformed criminal character.

Whereas I have found it unsettling to discover Watts’ past demons, I do smell blood here and will not let my enemies have a wink of sleep. I will not let this matter rest, purely from a vengeful perspective. Watts went out of his way to take 4 whole days out of my time and life (plus recovery) by delivering an unnecessary acuphase.

He thought it was particularly funny and Gareth Lane and himself had a good giggle at the time. I hope that giggling now haunts him because it has fired me into action. He wants to go out of his way to ruin my life, then I will let as much of the public know about his own failures in life and his own sick ideas on reality.

I was an inpatient under Watts’ treatment at Talygarn. I like drinking green tea and always have my own green teabags. It is an antioxidant and helps combat the torture chemicals you use by force upon me during incarceration. The teacups at Talygarn were small and it was difficult to get a good brew from them. I asked the staff and got the staff’s permission to bring in my own mug so that I could enjoy my green tea more whilst an inpatient.

Nicola, my partner, brought me a mug from home and on entering Talygarn at visiting time she was subjected to a search by nurse in charge, Jayne Hughes (one of Agi Tyson’s good friends and working colleagues). By the time I managed to locate Nicola she was crying her eyes out and Jayne was screaming at her. Jane banned her from visiting me any more and entering Talygarn as Nicola had brought contraband into the ward. The coffee mug was deemed an offensive weapon. I tried explaining that I had staff permission for the coffee mug. Jane threw Nicola out. She then called in Dr Watts and Gareth Lane who decided that it would be a good idea to implement their obvious punishment strategy a further notch (due to Agi Tyson affair).

Watts and Lane, while giggling uncontrollably took me into a room where Lane was physically threatening and Watts thought he’d get in on the act too, while being protected by his insane nurse. They ordered me off to Beechwood for four days for Acuphase as a result of Nicola bringing me a coffee mug.

Acuphase, as I need not explain is a pretty serious affair. This was completely unnecessary. I travelled down to the secure Beechwood Ward and accepted my fate. I didn’t resist as I didn’t blame the Beechwood staff for just following the orders of their employment. The nurse, Paul (with moustache) who administered the injections did tell me (and he wanted it off the record) that he really disagreed with his instructions in this incident as he knew that Watts was out of order and that I didn’t require acuphase.

I tried writing a letter of complaint at the time but it was torn up by Beechwood staff when I gave it to them to deliver to the Hospital managers. I think I may have written another note to the managers but of course the matter went unresolved. I also did inform you verbally in person about the incident at the time but no action was ever taken to investigate or discipline Watts, Lane and Jane.

I would like this matter looked at again as there must be medical notes in existence to verify that I am not a liar.

After the acuphase I returned to Talygarn and eventually returned home, although I think I lost several managers hearings / section appeals (as I usually do).

I actively tried to remove Watts as my psychiatrist from that point as I obviously regarded him as very dangerous. I also tried to avoid Lane. Eventually – a long time afterwards I was transferred out of forensic psychiatry and away from Watts although Lane persisted in harrassing me and treating me for a considerable amount of time afterwards. The fact that you are getting Lane to harrassingly call me and ruin my Christmas and enact police / section kidnaps – on my birthday no less, shows me that the immaturity and criminality of the local mental health system knows no bounds.

I would like this particular incident to be addressed, especially now in the knowledge that Watts was in fact a convicted criminal. I find the matter so deeply disturbing my feelings cannot be expressed in words.

Regards

Wesley Gerrard

As you might be able to tell, I am a little angry about the ridiculousness of this situation. It may be minor to the casual reader, but let me assure you that Acuphase is about the most serious form of mental health drug on the market and it makes you feel so bad that words cannot describe. It’s a serious misuse of medicine and clear negligence. All over the sake of a coffee cup… These doctors are out of their minds and out of control.

Here is the official response, from Aneurin Bevan University Health Board Chief Executive, Judith Paget…

As can be seen by the response to this complaint, the bosses of Darryl Watts have defended his abominal actions to the letter claiming he made good medical decisions. We are talking about a convicted paedophile who has no right to practise medicine, who is treating me, a non-criminal, against his consent, while detaining him, using the mental health act. I find the inability of Watts’ bosses to recognise malpractice as particularly irresponsible and most disturbing. It seems as though I will not be getting justice on this particular occasion and to be honest I feel that any for,m of justice in my plight against mental health is seemingly futile based on the clear cut defensive stance taken by senior NHS policy-makers towards their psychiatrists. Where can one obtain justice as a mental patient?

Police Brutality and Mental Health – PART 2

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In this second post about my experiences of police brutality and mental health, I wish to discuss the nature of problems affecting diagnosed mental health victims when it comes to attempting to conventionally use police services.

If you’ve ever been a mental inpatient you are probably aware that the police’s jurisdiction does not extend to mental hospitals. There is no protection for incarcerated patients no matter how many times you contact police. Therefore you are forced to deal with crime inside a hospital environment on your own. This in itself is dangerous, especially when often it is the polices themselves who have removed you to the locked environment. I suppose, it could be argued that it makes sense not to want to seek help from an organisation that works on behalf of the secret prison system that is mental health lockup.

The problem I have found, is that once back in the community, attempting to build up your life, should you ever require the assistance of the police in a conventional way. To report a crime or anything else, you do not get standard service that a public user of their service might expect.

This dilemma is created by, despite diagnosed mental illness not (yet) being a criminal offence, it is recorded by the police and you do show on their system as being diagnosed mentally ill. When you call 999 or 101, caller display and police monitoring systems indicate immediately and you are flagged as a ‘mentally ill’ customer.

I first encountered the reality of this situation over a decade ago when, during a business dispute whereby some of my business’ equipment was illegally seized and I was attempting to recover it I was held hostage on someone else’s business premises with active threats of violence which I feared could result in murder. I felt I had no real alternative but to report the matter to the police, from a question of personal safety as much as anything else. Luckily, I had a mobile phone so I dialled 999 and reported the matter from within my locked environment.

After about 15 minutes the police turned up at the location. they entered the premises where the owner was actually in the room with me. The police entered, and despite me having given a lucid sane account of the crime I alleged, the police did nothing to the person I was reporting, but on entering the building put me up against the wall, inside the place where I’d been captive for about 90 minutes and started conducting a body search. I asked them exactly what they were doing as it was I who had contacted them and was the victim of a crime. The Asian officer, who I knew from the local Caldicot police (part of Gwent police), informed me that because I was mentally ill, this was standard procedure and he had to check me for concealed weapons which I obviously did not have. After conducting a thorough body search I asked him if he would now attend to the criminal matter at hand and that a) I wanted out of my hostage situation and if possible I wanted the recovery of my stolen computers and other business equipment that were being locked in a different part of the building. The police officer told me that I was trespassing and had to leave the premises without my equipment. I was quite shocked, but equally quite glad to be alive and no longer being held in a hostage situation. The police never followed up the matter at all, but I was very ill at ease and realised that I wouldn’t get conventional treatment from the police due to my mental health status. As a business you have to right off the occasional asset and possessions aren’t everything in this world. Health is a priority and preserving life is a necessary factor in living.

I tried my best not to ever contact them again but unfortunately many years later I had the misfortune of having to report a crime and felt that to make a 999 call was the only viable option.

My fiancée, Nicola, had a friend around our house for the evening. They had been enjoying themselves and having a few drinks whilst I was just minding my own business, ploughing away with my computer work…. running so many internet sites and social media takes a lot of dedicated effort! lol…

It came time for Nicola’s friend to go home. It was about midnight and she had booked a taxi. Nicola told me her friend was leaving and asked if I’d do the gentlemanly thing and escort her friend outside and to see her safely into the taxi. Of course, as chivalry demands I obliged and walked the lady outside. As she got into the taxi, a little drunk as she was, I Couldn’t believe my eyes when the taxi driver leant over her, strapped her seatbelt in and not realising that I was present, openly groped the passenger’s breast. I immediately protested and demanded to see the driver’s identity card. He showed me a ‘hackney carriage id’ with his photo on. I felt it strange that a local taxi in South Wales should have a London cabbie’s ID. The taxi sped off down the road before I could discuss matters further and sort the situation myself.

I rushed back inside and quickly explained to the missus what had happened. She was shocked and we both realised that the only people we could realistically call in this potential kidnap situation was the police on 999.

I reluctantly dialled ‘999’ and the operator speedily put me through to the police. As I was reporting the incident, I realised that I was speaking to a local police operator from her accent. the questioning seemed to be directed away from the incident and she seemed to be just gathering information on me. there was an obsession to get my details and not the details of the crime. It was like going through a standard call centre security check, like when you ring the bank. I suddenly realised that I had obviously flagged on their system as mentally ill and they were messing around. This, when Nicola’s friend’s life was in potential danger, made me angry. I hung up on the 999 call and immediately rang 999 again to try and get a better response from a different operator. I got put through to a police operator somewhere in the East Midlands if I remember correctly. I rushed through my incident report which was accepted well and she informed me that the matter was being dealt with and that the incident could expect a response.

After this 999 call ended, I quickly rang Nicola’s friends partner, who was waiting for her at home. I explained to him the situation and he was very worried, but luckily as we were talking, his drunken partner stumbled through the house door. Nicola and I breathed a sigh of relief and were just glad that the worst had not transpired in the incident. As we experienced relief we could hear a massive noise outside as vehicles started storming the neighbourhood. I realise it was the police arriving. Nicola went running outside to explain what had happened and that her friend was home safe.

I had my dressing gown on and was pondering about getting changed before I saw the police but I thought I’d better get outside and check that Nicola was OK.

This is where matters broke down and still to this day I cannot get my head around the actual lunacy that resulted. I have put in IPCC complaints etc about this and tried to pursue the matter but obviously it’s a waste of time dealing with that particular organisation.

I went through the front door and Nicola was about 25 metres away, surrounded by a group of yellow-vested police. She looked frightened and I was worried about what was happening. Stood on my front lawn I politely inquired of Nicola if she was Ok and all was OK. On hearing my voice, a second group of approximately 10-12 officers, saw me and in a military formation started rushing at me, as a group…. I raised my hands just to try and settle them. Perhaps they thought I was the reported criminal, and Nicola was the victim? This was not actually the case as the IPCC would have reported this to me when I entered my official complaint.

The police grabbed me. I offered no resistance at all, as obviously I had just dialled 999. I was thrown face down on the floor and handcuffed. The young PC, about 20 years old, who led the charge and had handcuffed me then proceeded to boot me in the back of the head and left his foot embedded in my neck, applying pressure. I couldn’t breathe at all and felt close to death. I was suffocating as I was face down in the mud with a boot in the back of my head / neck, obstructing my airways. I was in a stress position with my hands secured behind my back in cuffs. I started having an asthma attack after several minutes and somehow the officer’s heavy jackboot was removed from my neck. I was hyperventilating and just pleaded to see a doctor. He shouted at me that he was a doctor. As i re-caught my breath I was removed from the ground and escorted towards one of the waiting police vans. I asked them politely if they could get my inhaler from inside my home as I was having an asthma attack and needed it, especially anticipating I would be locked in the airtight, sealed back of a police van for a journey to wherever.

They refused to get an inhaler and were still surrounding Nicola in a military-style ring formation. I was concerned for my partner’s safety as I didn’t really want to leave her in the company of this particular section of police officers. You have no choice, however, and there was nothing I could do but quietly pray as the vehicle moved off. Cuffed, back of the wagon, not for the first time, hardly able to breathe. It is disturbing travelling in the back of a ‘meat wagon’ yet when you’ve been cuffed in the back of an ambulance the first time they introduced handcuffs to your life, travelling police-style isn’t as scary as people might imagine.

The van stopped and the doors were opened and I was grabbed out, yet the cuffs were not removed. I was at the back of Newport Central police station. I was escorted into the processing area. I thought I’d go straight to the custody desk and be able to get some sense out of the custody sergeant and at least be able to phone and check that Nicola was safe and well as that was my main concern. With a sexual predator being around my home, the last thing I need is to be wondering if the missus is home safe with doors securely locked. At Newport Central, however, nothing is very easy. There were two police in the van. One, the 20 year old male ‘doctor’ who had assaulted me. The other, one from Nicola’s surrounding ring, a woman officer, who I later established was the officer in charge of the whole ‘operation’ and was a beat officer from Chepstow. Never seen either before in my life. They stopped behind the closed door of the custody suite, just inside the entrance, one either side of me restraining my arms, even though I was cuffed behind my back. We stopped and I was held there for I’d estimate about 60-90 minutes. The bloke on my left was obviously bored and decided to relieve his boredom by twisting my thumbs on my left hand around, trying to dislocate them or break them, no doubt. After being the victim of his assault outside my home I was in no mood to verbalise anything with him, for obvious reasons. In a police situation the best thing to do is to remain calm. A police officer full of adrenaline is a dangerous thing. Any form of ‘dissent’ will be punished. His officer to my right was not torturing my thumbs nor was she aware of his little idea of ‘fascist police brutality’.

I got to the custody desk, asked to call my partner at home, was denied and moved straight to the holding cells. No charge, no comment, no offer of communication about what is going on, no offer of legal representation. No communication whatsoever. Luckily, another officer managed to release me from the rather restrictive cuffs at this stage and I was so glad to get into the back of the cell where I could start reworking my circulation. At the end of the day, as a professional DJ who requires his hands for work, there is nothing worse than handcuff wounds and finger / thumb injuries… My thumb has never become right since that day. It’s a real challenge, spinning vinyl, when you’ve been tortured by police officers on so many occasions, directly on the parts of the body you need most to earn a living.

Unfortunately they wouldn’t shut the cell door and give me any peace and kept it open as, after waiting so long to get into the place there was a crazy rush to get me out. I was moved on by a fresh police officer straight out of the nick and into a more comfortable cage in the back of another van. No communications again as to where we were heading, why we were heading there, what was going on, but you expect it off the police. I recognised this copper from a previous detention and he seems a little more settled than the rampaging lot who had kidnapped me earlier in the evening.

Eventually we turned up at the secure mental hospital ward, Beechwood, St. Cadoc’s Hospital. Luckily an Ok nurse, my mate Mick was the nurse in charge for the evening. He could see that the coppers had had a right go at me and luckily as they released me into his custody he let me just have a wander off in ‘freedom, around the St. Cadoc’s grounds and garden outside the ward as he knew full well I wouldn’t be seeing any outside or nature for quite some time.

I was of course to be ‘treated’ by the criminal mental patient forensic police-employed Newport Central psychiatrist Dr Darryl Watts (see – #EoT category http://endofterror.org/?cat=191 ) for the duration of my detainment. Mick gave me one last privilege before I was sectioned as he humanely allowed me to phone Nicola, who thankfully was at home, alone, with doors locked, and safe. I had a cigarette to calm and then faced a junior shrink to get sectioned. god knows what for… to this day and post court hearings (Mental Health Review Tribunal) I do not know how the hell calling 999 to report a directly witnessed sex crime can be mental illness, yet if the police psychiatrist who is treating you is a convicted sex offender then I suppose it makes some sort of sense (as twisted as mental health logic goes).

I think that as much as I hate the police state that I believe one has to accept that it is a reality. With the IPCC (Independent Police Complaints Commission) being so useless, it is important for people to document crimes by the police publicly. At the end of the day, if the outright murders of Brazilian tourist, Jean Charles de Menezes, and newsagent, Ian Tomlinson, go completely unpunished then what hope is there for other police victims in the UK? History teaches us about the rise of Nazi Germany post-1933 and what resulted in that. The scariest thing for me was that one of the first groups of people Hitler exterminated as war broke out, were the mental patients. i think that they paved the way for the gypsies and jews and slavs etc that followed. Obviously modern psychiatry was born directly out of concentration camp science. We live in a repetition of history and early 21st century Britain is in danger of being remembered in the same way as 1930s Germany.

I’ve got plenty more episodes of this blog to release, equally traumatic, if not more so, and while ‘freedom’ allows I shall continue to fight for the truth and justice and the end of tyranny and evil in mental health and psychiatry.
to be continued…

Ps. they didn’t have an asthma pump in the police station or hospital so I had to wait for my partner to arrange visiting times and bring one in for me at which point it was confiscated as it hadn’t been prescribed by the psychiatrist in charge.

[This is part 2: READ PART 1 of this story thread here… http://endofterror.org/?p=512 ]

Police Brutality and Mental Health – PART 1

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I have no criminal record. But, I have been in the mental health system of the UK since 1997 – 18 years to date. Unfortunately the name ‘health’ in ‘mental health’ is a misnomer. The mental health system is nothing but a secret prison system where people can be easily silenced and removed from society without appropriate balances and checks such as those that exist in the criminal justice system. The police have a very active role in mental health and very often the first people you see when you are sectioned under the mental health act are the police. They do not have to place you under arrest verbally. If you are diagnosed or under suspicion of having a mental health condition you can just be attacked by them, handcuffed and dragged off in the back of a van to either a police station – deemed as a ‘place of safety’ under the mental health act, or directly to a mental hospital, usually in the custody of police, direct to a secure mental hospital locked ward. There is an illusion in the public that you have to be seen by a judge or get legal assistance but the reality is that once TAKEN you usually have to wait 5 months in custody before going before a court of law. Those five months of non-consensual treatment and torture with no freedom at all are obviously hell.

Over the years the police have become more and more involved in my mental health treatment. I want to use End Of Terror to publicly address some of the worst brutality I have experienced from them. I feel I have a duty to the public to warn them as the police are very dangerous and can cause members of the public serious harm. They have been stepping up their militarisation here in the UK for a number of years now and I believe them to be a hardened criminal incorporation who believe they are exempt from the law.

In this post I will illustrate one example of brutality where I have photographic evidence. I have presented this case to the IPCC (Independent Police Complaints Commission) on a number of occasions. This body, however, is a sham and is not fit for purpose. The police escape punishment and never learn from their crimes.

The above scar comes from a stay in Newport Central Custody Suite – a ‘place of safety’ in the summer of 2011. I had been seized by police from my front garden after a transvestite neighbour who I didn’t get along with falsely reported me as streaking in the neighbourhood. I hadn’t been streaking at all. I was in my dressing gown and was minding my own business. The police turned up, stripped me naked and handcuffed me. I had recently been appointed a police forensic psychiatrist on my previous visit to Newport Central. This psychiatrist, Dr Darryl Watts, is a convicted criminal, convicted in 2003 of serious child sex offences. In 2011 (and still to this day to my knowledge) Watts was working for the police out of Newport Central. It sort of defies logic that the police should employ a convicted sex offender to work out of their station, but that is my opinion. It just proves the criminal mentality of Gwent police and how low they are prepared to stoop.

I was thrown naked into a cell, having been bundled out of the van. At last, I was free from the handcuffs. I didn’t have time to inspect my handcuff wounds, however. As per usual the custody sergeant gave me no access to a phone call either to family or to a solicitor. I was then kicked in the side by a forensic community nurse, Gareth Lane, who was Dr Darryl Watts’ partner in crime or second in command. The police refused to clothe me. I was then left alone in the cell with the convicted paedophile sex offender, Dr Darryl Watts. [See Daily Mail and Bristol Post]He was mouthing off repetitious nonsense, about me being the sickest person he has ever seen, some sort of mantra which I later discovered was part of his own plea to the judge during his trial and conviction years ago. Watts is obviously a mental patient himself and although under the treatment of a psychiatrist for diagnosed mental illness, he is allowed by the police to practise psychiatry.

Watts eventually left thank god, and although naked, I was allowed time to recuperate although without a toilet or any water, despite asking for hours for either a glass of water or to be able to go to the toilet, I was just left alone , naked. I wonder about deaths in custody and just exactly how many police prisoners in custody actually starve to death, die of thirst or suffocate in cells.

Police started gathering outside the cell as I could see them through the little glass window. I counted about 8 or 9 of them in all and could hear them egging each other on to psych themselves up for something.

The cell door open and the light switch was turned off. Officers started piling into the cell and that was the last thing I could remember. I awoke some time later in a secure ward – Beechwood Ward, at St Cadoc’s Hospital. As I awoke, I felt great pain in my side and I looked down on the bed and I had a deep cut running from my belly around my hip to my back.

I struggled up and asked a nurse on Beechwood how on earth I had gotten there and who had assaulted me. He said that the open wound was an old rugby injury but I had retired from rugby 20 years previously and hadn’t touched a ball since.

I had been placed under section and when I finally got a transfer for good behaviour off the secure ward to Talygarn Ward, County hospital, Griffithstown, Pontypool, I managed to smuggle in a mobile phone with a camera to take the photos of the injury that you can see in this post.

A friend who visited me and who was no stranger to police brutality himself, informed me that in his opinion the weapon used was an ‘extendy’ truncheon, a thin metal rodlike truncheon. To this day, however, I do not know what actually happened although I do know that a criminal police doctor was present at Newport Central that day. I do regard the matter as not only a serious physical assault but a sexual one also as I was naked the whole time and when you are naked in the company of sex offenders and rendered unconscious, God forbid what might have happened.

There was a camera in the cell that I was in and I later got a solicitor from the criminal justice system to obtain the footage for me so I could see how the assault was committed. However, the tape conveniently went missing and Gwent Police refused to hand it over.

After a while and having lost all my court hearings due to my psychiatrist – Dr Darryl Watts’ lies and nonsense, I eventually returned home and went back to my civilian life. However, it wasn’t long before the police stepped up their act and went a few stages further in their brutality….

I was lucky on this occasion to have escaped with my life. I am scarred for life physically yet the worst scars are the mental ones. When you are treated by police officers in this way it puts you in a difficult situation mentally whenever you are unfortunate enough to encounter them. When I see them in public, at train stations or driving past in the street, I experience levels of fear and stress and anger that are indescribable. I do not believe that the police are human and think that they are a sub-species.

(to be continued)

[This is part 1: READ PART 2 of this story thread here… http://endofterror.org/?p=650 ]

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