Son-in-law of couple killed calls for Assembly to be restored to address mental health

The son-in-law of Michael and Marjorie Cawdery killed at their home by a man with severe mental illness has called for the urgent restoration of the Northern Ireland devolved government to address avoidable deaths.

Charles Little said the lack of a Stormont executive “kills people” as he advocated for a cross-department mental health strategy.

His father and mother-in-law, both 83, were stabbed to death at their home in Portadown, Co Armagh, on May 26 2017.

On Wednesday evening the Police Service of Northern Ireland issued an unreserved apology for failings in its handling of incidents preceding the killings.

It came after a coroner found that the deaths were “entirely preventable”.

The apology comes after a coroner found that the deaths of the couple, who were killed by a man with a severe mental health illness, were “entirely preventable”.

Paranoid schizophrenic Thomas Scott McEntee, who is now in his mid-40s, pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and was given a life sentence.

Coroner Maria Dougan said that, on the balance of probabilities, the deaths could have been avoided if police and health care workers had dealt differently with McEntee in several interactions in the days leading up to the fatal incident.

She added that she was not satisfied that all the lessons from the incident had been learned by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and the Belfast and Southern health and social care trusts.

Following the inquest in December, the Belfast and the Southern Health Trusts issued apologies to the family.

“We accept the Coroner’s findings and extend our apologies to the Cawdery family for the failings by the trust, as identified by the Coroner. We are reviewing in detail the Coroner’s written recommendations and will work in partnership with others across the Health and Social Care system (HSC) and with the PSNI,” the Southern Trust said.

Mr Little said the family were happy with the apology from Chief Constable Jon Boutcher, but highlighted that: "Change was needed to stop this happening again and put things right for the future because that gives some meaning to what happened to Mike and Marjorie."

Mr Little continued: "The apology's very important but getting the change to stop this happening again. Because that gives some meaning to what happened to my camaraderie, that we need that."

In a statement on Wednesday, Mr Boutcher said the PSNI carried out an internal review and established a gold co-ordinating group under assistant chief constable Ryan Henderson to “develop an action plan to address identified shortcomings and develop our engagement with the Department of Health and other partners”.

“It is imperative that we learn the lessons and do everything we can to prevent such a tragedy from happening again,” he added.

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