Broadntoor
Sir: I am writing to you about some serious errors in John Linklater's article 'Coming back' in the February I Spectator, and am asking you to publish corrections of them.
In paragraph one John Linklater refers to Broadmoor Hospital as "that most notorious of criminal lunatic asylums," Broadmoor is a state hospital. In 1966 the Daily Express published an article in which it was stated that the population of Broadmoor were "criminal lunatics." A patient complained and the complaint was rejected. The subsequent complaint to the Press Council was upheld by that body. In 1968 the Daily Mail apologised for having said that there were "900 insane criminals" in Broadmoor, and the BBC broadcast a letter from a patient correcting a similar mistake they had made in a previous braodcast. In June 1973 the Daily Express referred to Broadmoor as "the Berkshire hospital for the criminally insane." A patient complained 4nd in July 1973 the Daily Express published a correction and clarification. On March 29, 1974, the Daily Mail's leading article referred to Broadmoor as "an institution for the criminally insane." A patient complained and on May 10, 1974, the Daily Mai/ published a correction.
In paragraph two John Linklater says: "Neither was Broadmoor strictly intended to be a rehabilitation centre, but rather a centre of last resort for the indefinite detention of irremediably defective, Psychotic or psychopathic patients with criminal tendencies, for their own sakes as much as society's." We were "criminal lunatics" in "an asylum" in paragraph one; in paragraph two we have become "patients" — but what can this mean to your readers, who is informed that our condition is "irremediable"? Some of us, maybe — but Broadmoor, with a population of about 800, has a turnover of about 150 a year. The average stay is something like 3.7 years (World Medicine, November 14, 1973, which gives that figure in an officially assisted article by John Camp). All very different from the "indefinite detention of irremediably defective, etc. patients" which John Linklater hasunfortunately somehow got into his head, and more unfortuna
tely still, into his article. Patients are detained here — but all are sent here for treatment. (MHA, 1959; Parly Estimates Committee Report on Special Hospitals, 1968; Interim Report of the Butler Committee on Mentally Abnormal Offenders, 1974). Defectives are not sent to Broadhnoor, but to other state hospitals (Rampton and Moss Side), and the Broadmoor IQ is (partly as a result) well up on the national average.
Why were these facts not checked?
I look forward to hearing from you.
W. Barry Stone Editor, The Chronicle, Broadmoor Hospital, Crowthorne, Berks
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