19/02/98 - Hospital cleared
over release of child murderer.
The Birmingham Post
The mother of a three-year-old girl murdered and mutilated
by a released psychopath yesterday vowed to fight on
after her damages action was blocked by the High Court.
Lawyers for midwife Beverley Palmer, aged 40, of Hartlepool,
Cleveland, launched her £200,000 plus claim, saying
the killing of daughter Rosie had turned her into a
"psychological wreck".
In what is believed to be the first case of its kind,
they alleged negligence by Tees health authority and
Hartlepool and East Durham NHS trust, which runs Hartlepool
general hospital.
The hospital was responsible for the care of Shaun
Armstrong (33) who abducted Rosie in June 1994 after
she went to buy an ice lolly from a van outside her
home.
Police found Rosie's body hidden at unemployed Armstrong's
flat three days after she disappeared. He was jailed
for life at Leeds Crown Court after admitting her murder.
Armstrong had been under the hospital's care since
March 1992 and rehoused on the council estate where
Rosie lived.
But yesterday senior High Court official Master Hodgson
said Armstrong had made no direct threat against Rosie
and her family. He ruled there was a lack of the "proximity"
needed for her mother to bring a successful claim for
damages.
Master Hodgson said: "In the absence of such a
specific threat I think it is impossible, as the law
currently stands, for me to hold that the hospital owes
a duty of care to the world at large."
He added: "At the end of the day, there is no
proximity or special relationship demonstrated between
the plaintiff and the defendant, and on that basis this
claim, I fear, will fail."
Mrs Palmer said Armstrong had pleaded to be kept in
hospital "umpteen times" and threatened to
murder a child, but been "pushed out" into
care in the community.
She said: "With the law at it stands, there is
no justice because Armstrong did not say `I am going
to murder Rosie'.
"What he did say was `I am going to murder a child'.
He did not know Rosie Palmer."
"I will fight on. Even if I don't receive legal
aid, I will go to the Court of Appeal and represent
myself. I will not let this go."
Her solicitor Mr Graeme Peart said he found the case
terribly upsetting. He said: "An internal inquiry
report listed over 40 inadequacies in Armstrong's care,
but the inquiry felt it was not forseeable that he would
do what he did.
"We obviously dispute that. The report is really
quite horrifying as it reveals that things were just
let slip and weren't picked up.
"What do we do? We either have a proper system
of containment, or a much more efficient and caring
system of allowing patients out into the community.
We cannot have it both ways.
"We have got to take a choice as a society."
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