Michael Stone, the former psychiatric patient convicted of the murders of Lin and Megan Russell in Kent in 1996, is mounting an unprecedented legal challenge to try to stop publication of a report into his care before the killings.
It was the case of Mr Stone, who had received a diagnosis of a severe personality disorder before the murders, that prompted the UK government to propose a radical overhaul of mental health laws. The proposals have since been substantially scaled down.
In 1994 he was sectioned under the Mental Health Act, but doctors decided he was not mentally ill and released him. A heroin addict with a criminal record, he was on probation throughout 1995 and early 1996 and saw health and social workers around that time but apparently without arousing any serious concerns about his dangerousness.
In 1996 Lin Russell and her 6 year old daughter, Megan, were attacked by Mr Stone with a hammer and murdered as they walked home from a swimming gala along a country lane in Chillenden, Kent. Megan’s elder sister, Josie, then aged 9, sustained serious head injuries but survived the attack and recovered.
Robert Francis QC headed a team commissioned to carry out an inquiry into Mr Stone’s dealings with the NHS, social services, and the probation service after he was convicted in 1998 of the two murders and the attempted murder of Josie. The report was delivered in 2000, but publication was held up while Mr Stone’s case wound its way through the criminal justice system.
His conviction was overturned by the Court of Appeal in February 2001 after a key witness admitted lying at the trial, but he was convicted again after a retrial in October 2001. A second appeal was rejected in January 2005.
In England and Wales an independent inquiry is mandatory into any homicide by someone who has had recent psychiatric care. Lawyers who specialise in health care say they cannot recall any cases where such a psychiatric inquiry report after a homicide has not been published.
In a three day hearing scheduled for June at the High Court in London, Mr Stone is challenging a decision by Kent and Medway Strategic Health Authority, Kent County Council and the Kent Probation Board to publish the report, which will not include the names of the staff involved in his care. Police have advised that there would be a risk to some individuals’ safety if they were named, so the authorities decided to make anonymous all the staff who feature in the report.
Mr Stone, who is serving a life sentence at Full Sutton prison near York, argues that his right to respect for his private life under article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights and his rights under the Data Protection Act would be infringed if details of his care and treatment were published.