eleven days later

Eleven days. Truth is there hasn't been a moment to write anything down.  It is either work or M or just M all the time. Day to day things are done on the fly - shopping, paying bills, run, run. To the Social Services, to the hospital, to work, to the phone, run, run.

Phone call just now. "Hi Dad...they've just told me they are going to press charges against me".

She slapped a nurse apparently. This was several days ago but no-one thought it appropriate to talk to me, despite seeing me every day, so it comes as a shock. She has herself been restrained several times, face down on the floor, a bruise to her forehead and her legs (a proper bruise) while she is injected in her backside. She perceives this as violence towards her. She is very wound up, not saying she should slap anyone but maybe unsurprising in some ways that she has; she is sorry. She says that after the slap (followed by another restraint and injection) the nurse had said "now we are even".

Learning Disabled young adult in another Acute Psychiatric Ward - again. Mental age of a young child, emotionally unstable, medicated, anxious, depressed.  Now to a police custody unit.

I come away from work and spend several hours first at the hospital arguing the toss about the letter that they have given to me to take to the police station which is short and states that M 'has capacity' (ie to be treated as an adult who has committed a crime), and then we go down to the police station where she is taken through security doors, down long corridors, out through a yard with high fences where I imagine many serious offenders have walked the same journey, through heavy security doors and finally to a large room with a raised central area and in front of the custody officer before being walked past cells and into an interview room where she is 'interviewed' under caution with the tape recorders rolling.

It is 'the procedure' the ward manager told me; is it appropriate? I had asked. I can see in her eyes that I am now the enemy for asking questions. Since the 'incident' she had made a lot of progress; now she is back to almost uncontrollable anxiety, taking to herself again, peaking and troughing in behaviour every two minutes from little girl to wild behaviours copied and learned from her environment in an Acute Psychiatric Unit (that everyone keeps saying she shouldn't be in....).

"Perhaps if you had raised these issues of capacity and her care in the past....", I cut her off pointing out that we have been engaged with services for most of M's life, raising issues and desperately asking for support while we received endless assessments and new diagnosis from the next set of professionals, but no real help.  She moves onto a new subject without acknowledging what I have said.

Early in the interview under caution process where I am present as her 'adviser' M is asked whether she gives permission for her DNA to be taken for the PNC (Police National Computer). I point out that she doesn't have any clue as to what is being asked.  Her behaviour is child like as she tries to grasp what is being talked about. The officer clutches the letter stating that 'she has capacity' throughout the questioning, he repeatedly re-reads it and the poor guy looks bewildered.