According to a recent investigation viewed exclusively by Sky News, the degree to which mentally ill inmates will harm themselves has been exposed, since some are waiting longer than a year to be sent to psychiatric facilities.
The 27-year-old, who had no prior criminal history, was taken into custody when she began to suspect she was being poisoned.
While attending university, Bryony—not her real name—began to experience mental health issues following the loss of her mother from pancreatic cancer.
They finally led to a delusion in which she thought she was being killed by a tapeworm in her brain. Bryony believed that her food had been contaminated with tapeworm eggs by a nearby takeaway worker.
She threatened to murder the man in 2017 while she was going through a psychotic episode and demanded that he confess to drugging her and throw a match through the takeout door.
Bryony was detained for attempting arson and malicious communication. He was then held on remand at HMP Styal’s mental health unit in Cheshire.
Bryony claimed she was “so depressed” while incarcerated that she had self-harmed for the first time.
She remarked, “I couldn’t see any other option.”
It was essentially a coping mechanism for my environment.
“When you’re psychotic and depressed, being locked away in a cell is one of the worst things you can do to someone.”
Inmate ‘tried to disembowel himself’
A fresh analysis viewed exclusively by Sky News has exposed the extent to which mentally ill convicts will harm themselves.
Additionally, there are worries that the issue is getting worse because inmates with mental health issues are being detained in jails for extended periods of time before being sent to mental health facilities.
