REPORT OF AN INDEPENDENT INQUIRY ... - Hundred Families

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Procedure
10. As appears above, the procedure to be adopted by the Inquiry was, to some extent, provided for
within the terms of reference.
11. The starting point of the investigation into the care and treatment of Chandran Sukumaran was
to obtain his consent to the Inquiry Panel using relevant records relating to his care and treatment
for its review and for the preparation of this report. We obtained copies of those records which
were available and seemed to be relevant to our Inquiry. These included those medical records
which could be found, Newham Social Services notes and records held by the Metropolitan
Police Service and the London Probation Area of the National Probation Service.
12. From those records and through contact with the Trust, the joint commissioners of this report, the
Metropolitan Police Service and the National Probation Service, we then sought to identify those
witnesses who we believed to be able to give material information to the Inquiry. The manager
of the Inquiry then attempted to make contact with those possible witnesses. She was unable to
locate a Dr Nadeem Bhatti who was working at The Market Street Health Group in East Ham,
London in 1997. She learned that an employee of the Probation Service who had had some
involvement with Chandran’s case had died. Dr Alagrajah (who was Chandran’s GP in the early
1990s) did not respond to any of the letters sent to him and we subsequently learned that he has
retired. However, contact was made with all of the other people who seemed likely to be able to
give evidence which was material to the matters the Inquiry Panel had been asked to investigate.
They were then invited to attend to give evidence to the Inquiry Panel. Readers of this report will
find reference in it to some people who were not asked to attend an interview; the Inquiry Panel
has sought to ensure that the evidence it heard was likely to be relevant and proportionate to its
terms of reference.
13. Most of the witnesses who gave evidence to the Independent Inquiry came to Aneurin Bevan
House, 81 Commercial Road, London E1 or to Hailsham Chambers, 4 Paper Buildings, Temple,
London EC4. We visited Chandran at the John Howard Centre which is East London and The
City Mental Health Trust’s Medium Secure Unit. His sister, Sulekha Jaykumar, preferred not to
come to Aneurin Bevan House and we therefore saw her at a different location.
14. Once the Inquiry had heard all of the evidence, a draft report was prepared. The relevant parts of
that draft report were forwarded to those agencies and individuals who could be the subject of
criticism in the final report. They were all given the opportunity to respond to the possible
criticism either in writing or by attending a further interview. The draft report was also provided
on a strictly confidential basis to the commissioners of the Independent Inquiry and to the Chief
Executives of the Trust and of Newham Primary Care Trust. We received a number of responses
to the draft report. The Inquiry Panel then met to consider all of those responses and made
amendments to the draft report as a result of them.
15. The conclusions we have reached and the opinions we express in this Report are based on the
evidence we have heard and read in the course of our review of the care and treatment of
Chandran Sukumaran and on the responses we received to the draft report.