I wonder if you can help understanding what police should do if an independent witness writes an online police declaration statement stating that someone placed under a section 2 was telling the truth, despite it sounding like psychosis. Should the police contact that witness to check facts or ignore the witness viewpoint because the doctors agreed in placing someone under a section 2? Should the police forward the witness statement to the doctors to reconsider their view? Is there a legal process for such a situation?
The question doesn’t quite make sense to me, and wondered if you could explain further? I’m not sure what an “online police declaration statement” is for a start or what the patient is telling the truth about.
A witness statement was written online regarding the actions of a person who was sectioned. That statement was ignored, with the witness never spoken with by the police. And therefore, the section was based on statements by the police. The psychologists were therefore never given details that there was a witness to events which corroborated what the person sectioned said. Specifically, the person walked into a police station in a panic saying that there were monitoring devices in their apartment. The following day the building security wrote an online witness statement saying that what the person sectioned had said was true. The police, however, never contacted the witness. Nor were the doctors advised that a witness statement had been written.
Now that the person is sectioned it is very difficult to separate what has occurred before regarding the police and statements to what has now officially been registered.
My best bet would be to appeal the decision as soon as possible then bring forward the new evidence that could form a part of the attempt to discharge the patient in front of an independent mental health tribunal panel, however, when it comes to a person being sectioned there is usually more than one aspect that has been documented against the individual - so it may not be a case where you have to prove one allegation above others, but more of a collective counter defence to what has been claimed to validate the section.
I would though try to share the evidence with an advocate who can then accompany the patient in ward round meetings to review the section. That way at least you have someone else speaking on the patient’s behalf to consider the new evidence.
The problem here is that once you are sectioned. Then everything you say or do is measured against the very reports that you are trying to disprove.
It’s very difficult to break out of a box that has been sent to the right address.
I would appeal straight-away than rely on others to come through.
Do the police now let people write witness statements online? - I’ve never heard of that before. We would need to know what the witness statement is about to understand it’s relevance - is it from someone who witnessed a crime (the principal reason for a statement being required)?
Sections are never based only on statements from the police - the AMHP and x2 DRs have to form their own view about whether to detain someone and whilst that might include consideration of information from the police, it will never be based entirely on that. Indeed, some police officers might say that all too often, AMHPs/DRs don’t section people when information makes it “obvious” to the officers that detention is necessary. This underscores the independence of the AMHP and forming their own view of things.
Your description of events is (probably for good reason) still a touch vague to give a specific response, but a security person confirming that a person had said something of that kind wouldn’t normally be something the police would ever need in the form of a written statement so if that had happened, I can see why it might be ignored. It’s not evidence of a crime being committed by anyone and that’s what the police need statements for - the police wouldn’t need to contact such a witness, unless there’s more to the events.