'Beheading' killer care critisised

The psychiatric unit of a hospital in Wales has been strongly criticised for its treatment of a man who brutally beheaded a British woman on Tenerife.

The family of Jennifer Mills-Westley say she would be alive today if the hospital in Bodel-Wythan had recognised her killer was seriously ill.

Instead, Deyan Deyanov, 30, was "inappropriately" diagnosed as feigning mental illness and was released from a psychiatric unit seven months before the brutal random assault.

ITV News correspondent Ben Chapman reports:

The family of a woman who was beheaded in a Tenerife supermarket have said their mother would still be alive if a Welsh hospital had recognised her killer had serious mental health problems.

A report found there were "shortcomings" in the care of Bulgarian Deyan Deyanov, who killed Jennifer Mills-Westley, by the Ablett psychiatric unit in north Wales.

Mrs Mills-Westley's daughters said: "We are shocked to learn that the clearly prejudicial views of the medical staff severely compromised the diagnosis and therefore subsequent treatment of Deyan Deyanov.

"Had Betsi Cadwaladr recognised that Deyan Deyanov was a young man with very serious mental health problems then our mother would still be alive today."

A health board has apologised to the family of a woman who was beheaded by a paranoid schizophrenic after he was misdiagnosed by mental health services in north Wales.

A report by the Health Inspectorate Wales found there were shortcomings in the Ablett psychiatric unit's care of Deyan Deyanov, who murdered Jennifer Mills-Westley in 2011.

Professor Matthew Makin, medical director at Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board which runs the unit, said: "This is a deeply distressing tragedy for the family of the victim and I hope that they will be assured that things have changed as a result of what has happened."

Read more: 'Shortcomings' in care of Tenerife beheading killer