REPORT OF AN INDEPENDENT INQUIRY ... - Hundred Families

8. Chandran’s recollection of the reason for his admission to Goodmayes Hospital was that he had
stopped taking his medication on his return from India and had become very violent because he
thought people “were after me - I got delusional thoughts”. He explained:-
“I thought everyone was trying to kill me and things like that and I locked myself in the flat
and I started hallucinating. I wasn’t sleeping well either. I think I smashed the furniture in the
wall. I thought people were moving around...
“I threatened [my father]. I thought he was someone else, I didn’t think he was my father. I
made this heart in art class and I asked him, do you have a heart inside you, you don’t show
any love, that kind of thing. On the report it said I tied him down and said I was going to pull
the heart out to see if he has a heart. I don’t believe I did that. I chucked him out. I threw the
mirror at the wall and I told my father to leave the house and he just walked out of the house.
Then the police came down and took me to the police station. They thought my behaviour
was very irrational. I had delusional thoughts and they thought I was mentally ill and they
took me to Goodmayes Hospital.”
9. The Part One discharge summary which is dated 11th January 1991 records, amongst other
information, that he:
Comment
“was very well up until about eighteen months ago when he became “high”, talking fast and
loudly, and occasionally hitting his father. He was sent to India, staying there for three
months, and during this time he was admitted to a private hospital. However, when he
returned to England he was non-compliant with the medication prescribed for him in India.
Subsequently there has been a great deal of friction between him and his father who ... is a
very aggressive man and who refuses to allow Chandran to watch television, have regular
baths, etc. Over the past month Chandran has become high again, often hitting his father. He
has spoken about his father killing his mother who died when Chandran was very young.
“About two weeks ago Chandran and his father were having a lot of rows which were so
distressing to the patient that he called the Police, claiming that his father was going to kill
him. Subsequently he was taken to the friend’s house, returning to his father’s flat a day later.
However, the rows continued and Chandran punched his father. It is alleged that at one point
he threatened his father with a knife and so his father left the flat and went to stay with a
friend, returning to the flat later on in order to get some medication. However, Chandran
would not let his father in. For about three days Chandran was living in the flat alone, refusing
to answer the telephone or the door. Eventually the Police were called by his neighbours as
Chandran was heard to be smashing the flat up. Apparently he had broken many of the
windows and some of the furniture, and had strewn paint and rags all over the floor of
the kitchen.”
The clinical and discharge information gave a comprehensive account of what was then
known about Chandran’s condition save that there was, by then, probably a five to six year
history of illness, not eighteen months.
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