Released Psychiatric Patient threatens to shoot NP Contributor

KENT, England: A middle aged male patient released from a Kent Psychiatric hospital in Dartford wreaked havoc in a small hotel at the weekend.

The patient appeared to have checked himself in at 4am by a nightporter. Unknowingly the member of staff was unaware that he had been evicted from a house where an elderly man  had lived and that he had been recently released from a psychiatric unit.

The unshaven man, dressed in a scruffy hoody with a Taoist emblem on it, wandered round the hotel without any shoes and occasionally took off his trousers.  He ignored all the 'private bar' areas despite being asked to leave the area several times.

Despite the man trying to find out the housekeeper's room and try and attack her, the police were unable to remove him as he only made an 'indirect threat' and said he was well known to them (he was barred from all the local pubs) and  was supposedly declared 'sane'. He continued to say he was a 'Buddhist Monk' and 'Bomb Disposal Officer' throughout his stay at the hotel. He said he also wanted to 'nuke' the hotel. 

One elderly lady who appeared to know him rang up the hotel yesterday morning, and said that he was dangerous and suffers from bi-polar disorder and schizophenia and that he may not be taking his medication.

When the Police Welfare Officers eventually came to assess him after I contacted a Kent Psychiatric Helpline for advice, he had disappeared from the hotel. The Officer gave  a thorough search of the hotel, including the balcony, in case he had clambered out the window. He had left behind scattered bananas from breakfast all over the bed, his room key,  the bath tap running, and middle pages of the Daily Mail with the alarming headlines  'Third World War' on the floor.

It was later in the evening when the man turned up again. He was asked to leave and he refused  He then got angry and threatened to shoot me.

"Ah ha, finally got him" I said, and called three officers (one who looked the spitting image of Prince Harry) finally came and removed him and admitted him to another psychiatric unit to be reassessed.

The hotel guests were pleased with the outcome,  'is your friend still here?". The hotel is, however, eerily quiet without him.

It is a bit of a concern that people in the UK are being released from institutions early in the UK.  A friend who worked for the Samaritans said 'this happens all the time'.