Probe into frenzied killing by Littlehampton schizophrenic slammed as “whitewash”

THE family of a man who was killed in a frenzied knife attack by a paranoid schizophrenic from Littlehampton has condemned an independent inquiry into the case as a “whitewash”.

Daniel Quelch, 33, was stabbed more than 80 times by Benjamin Frankum (pictured, above), who was in the care of Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and living in a flat in Arundel Road.

The inquiry, carried out for the NHS South East Coast Strategic Health Authority (SHA), found “no evidence” that Mr Quelch’s killing “could have been predicted or prevented”.

But his family, speaking after the findings were announced yesterday (Monday, October 3), described the inquiry as “deeply flawed”.

His mother Barbara Quelch, with whom Daniel (pictured, left) was staying at the family home in Maidenhead, Berkshire at the time of the killing, in August, 2007, said: “We are fully aware that nothing now can bring Daniel back.

“But we are determined as a family to do everything we can to ensure that, as far as possible, no other family has to go through what our family had to suffer and endure.”

Commenting on the report, she added: “We believe it is a missed opportunity that will do nothing to promote patient safety, or prevent further avoidable homicides by mentally ill people in Sussex.”

Mr Frankum, aged 25 at the time of the killing, had been detained on three occasions under the Mental Health Act over the previous six years after being diagnosed with treatment-resistant schizophrenia and “delusional and persecutory beliefs”. However, in August, 2007, he was under NHS care as a voluntary patient.

The report, carried out for the SHA by independent consultants Verita, said that a year before the killing Mr Frankum’s illness had improved, together with his ability to look after himself, and he was transferred to a staffed residential home, in Worthing, where he continued to make progress.

In May, 2007, he moved to an unstaffed but supported home in Arundel Road, Littlehampton, run by a housing association for men with mental illness. Report author Lucy Scott-Moncrieff told a press briefing that Mr Frankum “deteriorated quite rapidly” in the new home, resulting in visits by his care co-ordinator being increased.

During that August two assessments by a doctor and then a social worker were arranged to determine whether Mr Frankum should be detained under the Mental Health Act. Neither considered that he should be detained.

The care co-ordinator last saw Mr Frankum on August 17 and arranged to see him again three days later. He went to the house on August 20, but Mr Frankum was not there. Two days later he turned up at his mother’s home in Berkshire, a couple of miles from the Quelch’s family home, where Daniel was brutally killed the next day in a random attack on an innocent victim.

Two of his children, aged two and five, and an eight-year-old friend, were in the house and witnessed the attack. Mrs Quelch returned in her car from exercising dogs to find Frankum in the garden, wearing only his boxer shorts, and covered in blood.

The SHA chose not to name Mr Frankum nor Mr Quelch on the advice of its lawyers, in case he has to stand trial for the killing at a later date. Two years ago he was considered unfit to stand trial. Mr Frankum was labelled “Mr X” and Mr Quelch “Mr A”.

Ms Scott-Moncrieff told journalists: “We carefully examined all the evidence from the time Mr X was first admitted to see whether there were any signs that could have alerted staff that he might become violent.

“We found no evidence in his past that showed he was a threat to anyone else. The greatest concern by staff was for his own physical and mental welfare.”

Both Ms Scott-Moncrieff, and the SHA, expressed their deepest sympathies to Mr Quelch’s family.