Mental patient to give evidence
Updated on 17 December 2007
For the first time in the UK, a patient in a psychiatric hospital is to give evidence about her treatment to a public inquiry.
She is known as Susan, and she is being held in a high-security psychiatric hospital. She has a history of offending and self-harm going back many years.
Channel 4 News has learned that, for the first time in this country, the 21-year-old will give evidence to a public inquiry into the treatment she has received in prison.
All previous inquiries have dealt with people who have died or been so badly damaged that they have been unable to participate.
The inquiry follows a request from the Howard League for a probe into what it called the authorities' failure to treat Susan's mental health problems - and those of thousands of other young vulnerable people in prison.
