Patient sentenced for stabbing boy

Bosses of Ravenswood House say lessons have been learnt

A psychiatric patient who stabbed a 12-year-old boy while on the run has been ordered to be detained indefinitely at high-security hospital Broadmoor.

Gary Grey, 23, who was sentenced at Southampton Crown Court on Friday, had previously admitted abducting the youngster from woodland in Southampton and stabbing him several times in front of police officers.

Grey, who was being treated at the Ravenswood House unit near Fareham after attempting to murder his mother with an ice pick in 1997, fled while on an unescorted walk in its grounds in June 2003.

Bosses of the medium secure unit in Wickham said lessons had been learnt from the incident.

Two internal reviews have since concluded staff took all necessary precautions and an independent review is currently ongoing.

The boy was stabbed in the doorway of a house

A spokesman said: "Whilst we recognise that making precise decisions about people's potential behaviour cannot be an exact science, we have worked hard to ensure we have learnt all we can from the circumstances of this incident."

Grey had been a patient at the unit since 1999 and was being prepared for discharge.

But, on Monday, 30 June, Grey fled the grounds and made for his mother's home in Lordswood.

Police arrived at the home to see Grey repeatedly stab a boy he had frogmarched from nearby woods to Warbler Close.

The boy, who cannot be named, is said to have made a good recovery since the incident.

But Detective Sergeant Lee Dinnell said: "There are concerns obviously whether there is any mental trauma that will subsequently come to light."

On being sentenced, Grey - flanked by four security guards and a nurse - was told he represented a "grave and ongoing risk to the public".