Mental health murder link doubts

Anthony Hardy killed after being freed from a psychiatric hospital

Poor mental health care is not the main cause of the rise in the number of "stranger murders", researchers say.

University of Manchester staff found that drugs and alcohol were more likely to be the contributing factor in such killings.

Last year there was outrage after triple killer Anthony Hardy was freed from psychiatric hospital a month before killing his last two victims.

He was jailed for life in November after killing three women in London.

The report, published in the British Medical Journal, is based on murders in England and Wales between 1996 and 1999.

Alcohol and drugs

Researchers identified 1,594 murders, of which 358 were cases in which the victim was a stranger to their killer.

Jennifer Shaw, who led the research team, said: "In stranger homicides, perpetrators were more likely to have a history of drug misuse, and alcohol and drugs were more likely to have contributed to the offence.

"Homicides by strangers have increased more than homicides by people known to their victims, although they remain a minority of all homicides.

"Failings in mental health care have contributed to individual cases, and steps should be taken to prevent this.

"Stranger homicides are, however, more often committed by young men under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and a public health approach to homicide prevention should place greater emphasis on reducing alcohol and drug misuse in this group."

The team also noted that stranger murders and murders in general had increased substantially since 1967.

In 1967 there were 33 so-called stranger homicides. In 1997 the figure was 125.