Man murdered stranger in Devon park after losing mental health support, inquest hears | Crime
A man with mental health problems and a history of making violent threats murdered a woman in a Devon park after falling on a waiting list for a care coordinator, possibly because a health trust’s computer records were compromised by a cyber attack, an inquest heard.
If Cameron Davis had been assigned a care coordinator, a multi-agency meeting about him could have been called before he stabbed Lorna England, 74, senior coroner for Devon, Plymouth and Torbay, Philip Spinney, concluded.
Spinney pointed out that on the day of the murder, a mental health nurse tried to contact police on their non-emergency 101 line to report that Davis was threatening to kill someone. The nurse waited in line for approximately two hours before being disconnected.
The investigation found that Davis had been known to mental health services in Devon since November 2021.
In January 2023, the month before he murdered England, Davis showed up at an Exeter police station and told an officer he would “100%” kill someone. He was taken to hospital but released.
On Saturday, February 18, the morning of the murder, he told an emergency worker that he would kill a “random person” if he was not arrested. He was taken back to hospital but discharged again and continued to attack England in the afternoon.
The coroner said psychiatric teams followed proper procedures in deciding not to detain Davis. But he said: “There was an error in 2022 when Mr Davis appeared to have been removed from a waiting list. Mr Davis did not have a care coordinator assigned.”
He said: “I conclude that Mr Davis would have benefited greatly from a care coordinator as a single point of contact, as would the other agencies involved in sharing information.
“A care coordinator could have called a multi-agency meeting after a decline in Mr Davis’s mental health in late January. [2023].”
Spinney said a community meeting on mental health scheduled for Feb. 20 — two days after the killing — could have been moved up.
The coroner said a consultant psychiatrist speculated that Davis might have “fallen off the radar” because the Devon NHS Trust partnership’s computer records system was corrupted, preventing access for several months. The psychiatrist said this was due to a cyber attack on a company which supplied software to the NHS.
The coroner added that it was “obvious” that the 101 service was not operating effectively on the day of England’s murder. He said the call made by the mental health nurse showed there was a “system failure”.
But the coroner said he could not say that if Davis had been allocated a care coordinator or the 101 service had worked better, England’s murder would have been avoided.
Hollie Muckley from HCC Solicitors, who assisted the family, called for changes to the way potentially dangerous individuals are treated in the community. Muckley said: “Why weren’t police, clinical staff and housing agencies involved in a multi-agency risk meeting about Davis?
A spokesperson for Devon and Cornwall Police said: “We will carefully consider and consider each of the findings in detail. » The Devon NHS Trust Partnership declined to comment on the care coordinator issue.
Davis has been imprisoned for at least 28 years. The coroner concluded that England had been killed unlawfully.
