Do cannibals kill more people ecah year in the UK than do guns?
Killer turned cannibal after doctors set him freeBy Catriona Davies and Richard Alleyne
(Filed: 16/03/2005)
A mental patient who got a "thrill and feeling of power" from killing and eating his victims was free to carry out his crime thanks to a "manifest failure" in his treatment, the Old Bailey heard yesterday.
Peter Bryan, a paranoid schizophrenic and self-confessed cannibal, was jailed for life for killing two people while under the supervision of mental health services following an earlier fatal attack.
The court heard he fooled his doctors by masking his illness under a "veneer of near normality" and that he killed his second victim hours after his social worker and a panel of experts deemed him safe.
When police caught up with him, he was cooking the dead man's brain in a frying pan.
Yesterday, as Judge Giles Forrester told Bryan he had no chance of release, relatives of his victims and mental health pressure groups criticised the role of the authorities.
East London and The City Mental Health NHS Trust, responsible for Bryan's care, announced an independent inquiry into why he was allowed back into the community to kill again.
Bryan, 35, described by one doctor as the most dangerous man he had ever come across, killed his first victim, Nisha Sheth, a young shop assistant, in 1993, and was detained under a hospital order.
But over the next 10 years he persuaded his carers that he had made a "full recovery" and should be in independent accommodation.
He became an "informal patient" on a psychiatric ward of Newham General Hospital, east London, and was free to come and go as he pleased.
Peter Bryan: British Cannibal: "It's a good thing my victims were unarmed", I'd have starved elsewise"
On Feb 16 last year, hours after a ward meeting at which it was noted that there were "no concerns regarding his mental state", he went to Brian Cherry's flat and killed him with a claw-hammer and screwdriver before dismembering his body. Bryan told police: "I ate his brains with butter. It was really nice."
Two months later, while on remand in Broadmoor Hospital, Bryan found his third victim, a fellow patient, Richard Loudwell, 60. He battered him on the head and tied a ligature around his neck. Mr Loudwell died in hospital.
Bryan said that if he had not been interrupted he would have eaten his flesh. The court heard that he believed cannibalism was a natural part of the food chain, but that he also saw his killings as a "voodoo ritual".
Judge Forrester, who sentenced him to life in prison for each charge, said: "The violence was extreme and unpredictable, accompanied by bizarre sexual and sadistic overtones. You killed because you got a thrill and a feeling of power when you ate flesh. You gained sexual pleasure from what you were doing."
He said the mental health services had been unable to detect when Bryan was at his most dangerous because he had the "ability to obscure the psychotic symptoms under a veneer of near normality".
Earlier Aftab Jaferjee, prosecuting, said: "The last two [killings] took place in a two-month period when under the care of the Mental Health Act regime, which has manifestly failed to protect the public."
Bryan pleaded guilty to two counts of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
Relatives and pressure groups spoke of the failure in Bryan's treatment but praised the judge. Martin Isitt, Mr Cherry's brother-in-law, said: "We are glad he wasn't sent down under the Mental Health Act and able to come out in 10 years like last time."
Michael Howlett, the director of the Zito Trust, the independent mental health watchdog, called the case "one of the most serious" breakdowns in care to occur in Britain.
"It is of particular concern because it is so horrific, but we estimate that between 40 and 50 homicides are committed every year by those in contact with mental health services. We are extremely concerned about the seeming inability of the mental health services to prevent them."
Marjorie Wallace, the chief executive of the mental health charity Sane, said: "Sane is becoming increasingly concerned about the numbers of people with a mental illness or disorder who are discharged from hospital by a tribunal or simply allowed to walk off wards into the community without the police or community teams being alerted or adequate arrangements being made for supervision."
http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/03/16/nbryan16.xml
