Bad News For the Croydon.

Albert Haines has lost his mental health tribunal against his continued detention at the Broadmoor psychiatric hospital. His was the first such tribunal to be held in public. The secrecy element is of course a reference to my Local Health Authority's (LHA) repeated attempts to have last November's Court of Protection ruling unsealed. I have of course studied my copy at great length.

The reference to the mental health act is a confirmation that my grandmother's detention could be authorised under said act. However as the act and the protections it provides have not been enacted my grandmother's stay in hospital constitutes unlawful imprisonment contrary to common law and the 1861 offences against the person act. Not something that looks good when you're trying to argue you're behaving in someone's best interests.

Also today (25/10/11) my father has again been summoned to a meeting at the hospital with Ms Phiri the social worker who is supposedly no longer involved in the case and Ms Carter the care manager. This is the fifth such meeting in as many working days and comes on top of my father's visits to the hospital to see my grandmother. This workload is making it difficult to cope with his constant correspondences with the tax offices (HMRC). After conceding that they forced him to overpay some £800 in tax last year they have refunded him the amount but charged him £1. However they couldn't possibly deduct the £1 from the £800 so that's something he's going to have to do him self.

Elsewhere Silvo Berlusconi is teasing us with a promise to step down as Italian Prime Minister within the coming months. So I wonder if today's EU leaders summit is finally going to release the details of the bailout plan or whether they're going to kick the Cannes all the way down the road to the G20.

Edited at 22:45 on 25/10/11:

Albert Haines' tribunal was of course to determine whether or not he can be detained indefinitely under the mental health. He lost. Although detention in a psychiatric hospital is legally quite different from detention in prison the UK Justice Minister Ken Clarke has this evening done a dramatic U-turn and announced that the government will end indefinite detention in prison. Meanwhile the United States have indited the former Goldman Sachs board member with an Indian sounding name, Rajat Gupta.

So while the locals are still fantasising about all the money they're going to make out of me their leaders are doing frantic bargaining over how long they will have to spend in prison. I would say that will have to depend on how much remorse they show by completing given tasks quickly and efficiently.