Victims of mental health violence ‘left in dark under new bill’

Bereaved families and victims of mental health-related violence will continue to be “left in the dark” under planned laws which allow hospitals to withhold information about patients, charities have warned.

The victims’ commissioner has also expressed concern that the government is missing an important opportunity to redress the balance towards victims, who she said already faced barriers to getting “even the most basic information” about offenders.

The Victims and Courts Bill, being debated in the Lords, places the onus on hospital managers to decide “as they consider appropriate” how much information about mentally ill perpetrators is passed to victims and families.

In the past, victims have been distressed to discover that homicide perpetrators were released back into the community, and sometimes in close proximity, without their knowledge. The Nottingham public inquiry has shown how clinicians were reluctant to pass information to police and other authorities about a man diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia who killed three people in June 2023.

Julian Hendy, of the charity Hundred Families, which campaigns for transparency and awareness of mental health-related violence, said victims and their families were not often given important information such as being notified when perpetrators applied for day release.

He said that the rights and protections of victims in cases where perpetrators received hospital orders needed to be brought into line with cases where offenders were imprisoned and more information was readily available.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: The Times, 10 March 2026