Family of schizophrenic man who battered dad to death slam NHS
Nov 5 2008 by Neil Atkinson, Huddersfield Daily Examiner
He then stamped on his father until he was dead.
After his hearing, sister Melissa Thorpe, 28, brother Robert, 23, and mum Pauline, 57, welcomed the sentence, but launched a scathing attack on the care system.
They demanded to know why he was “left to rot” in a community care home with health workers failing to check on him.
Medical secretary Melissa said: “I have been living in fear in my own home, where Robert and I lived with our father, about what Richard might do to someone.
“My brother is only now getting the care and treatment he so desperately needed and should have got before.
“It has taken the horrendous death of my father to get to this point and that is not acceptable.”
Melissa told how she worried for her father’s safety after his relationship with troubled son Richard became strained when fights about religion erupted at the family home.
