If SG use
secret stalker squad,sg will be critized for abusing
human rights.
How about UK use this?
Revealed: Blair's secret stalker squad
Fears that doctors could be used to lock up terror suspects without
trail
by JASON LEWIS - More by this author » Last updated at 21:21pm on
27th May 2007
Comments Comments (26)
Tony Blair
The Government has established a shadowy new national
anti-terrorist unit to protect VIPs, with the power to detain
suspects indefinitely using mental health laws
The Government has established a shadowy new national
anti-terrorist unit to protect VIPs, with the power to detain
suspects indefinitely using mental health laws.
The revelation is set to reignite the row over the Government's use
of draconian measures to deal with terror suspects amid accusations
they are abusing human rights.
The Fixated Threat Assessment Centre (FTAC) was quietly set
up last year to identify individuals who pose a direct
threat to VIPs including the Prime Minister, the Cabinet and the
Royal Family.
It was given sweeping powers to check more than 10,000 suspects'
files to identify mentally unstable potential killers and stalkers
with a fixation against public figures.
The team's psychiatrists and psychologists then have the power to
order treatment - including forcibly detaining suspects in secure
psychiatric units.
Using these powers, the unit can legally detain people for an
indefinite period without trial, criminal charges or even evidence
of a crime being committed and with very limited rights of
appeal.
Until now it has been the exclusive decision of doctors and mental
health professionals to determine if someone should be forcibly
detained.
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But the new unit uses the police to identify suspects - increasing
fears the line is being blurred between criminal investigation and
doctors' clinical decisions.
It also raises questions about why thousands of mentally ill
individuals have been allowed back into the community - including
some who have attacked and killed members of the public - while
VIPs are being given special protection.
Scotland Yard, which runs the shadowy unit, refuses to discuss how
many suspects have been forcibly hospitalised by the team because
of "patient confidentiality".
But at least one terror suspect - allegedly linked to the 7/7 bomb
plot and a suicide bombing in Israel - has already been held under
the Mental Health Act.
The suspect, who was subject of a control order and cannot be named
for legal reasons, later absconded from the hospital and his
whereabouts are unknown.
The existence of FTAC, part of the Metropolitan Police's specialist
operations department which oversees anti-terrorist investigations
and royal and diplomatic protection, slipped out in the fine print
of a Home Office report.
The report makes it clear FTAC is a counter-terrorism unit and
says: "We aim to make the UK a harder target for terrorists by
maintaining effective and efficient protective security for public
figures."
NHS documents obtained by The Mail on Sunday reveal the unit's role
"concerns the identification and diversion into psychiatric care of
mentally ill people fixated on the prominent".
The purpose of the centre is "to evaluate and manage the risk posed
to prominent people by...those who engage in inappropriate or
threatening communications or behaviours in the context of
abnormally intense preoccupations, many of which arise from
psychotic illness."
The Mental Health Act requires two doctors or psychiatrists to
approve someone's forcible detention for treatment.
So-called 'sectioning' allows a patient to be held for up to six
months before a further psychological assessment. Patients are then
reviewed every year to determine if they can be released.
FTAC's senior forensic psychiatrist Dr David James, who has made a
study of attacks on British and European politicians by people
suffering pathological fixations, is qualified to order such a
detention, as are other members of his team.
Also on the staff is Robert Halsey, a consultant forensic clinical
psychologist who is a specialist in risk assessment.
The centre, which is based at a secret Central London location, has
a staff of four police officers, two civilian researchers, a
forensic psychiatrist, a forensic psychologist and a forensic
community mental health nurse. Job descriptions make it clear they
implement "interventions".
Human rights activists fear the team, whose existence has never
been publicised, may be being used as a way to detain suspected
terrorists without having to put evidence before the courts.
--http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=457934&in_page_id=1770
to be contd
