MENTAL HEALTH PATIENT JAILED FOR ASSAULT AFTER MOLESTING GIRL IN HOSPITAL CAR PARK
A mental health organisation has defended policies that allowed a convicted sex offender, David Byrom, to be on hospital grounds while he was an informal psychiatric patient.In June, he was in the Sherdley Unit, where he was receiving treatment for schizophrenia, and because he was not formally sectioned, there were no restrictions on his movements around the hospital grounds.
The offender then performed a sexual act in front of a mother and her 16-year-old girl in the hospital's multi-storey car park and subsequently molested the girl while her mother was at the pay point.
Less than a year earlier, Byrom had been jailed for three months for molesting a woman.
The 5 Boroughs NHS Partnership, which oversees mental health care in the region and manages the unit, stated that they can only detain patients on medical grounds, not criminal, and would not disclose if a patient's records indicated they were a known sex offender.
Byrom was later jailed indefinitely after appearing at Liverpool Crown Court.
The article questions the policies of the mental health organisation regarding the supervision and restrictions of such patients.
