Abstract

Nearly 1000 pages of the Kerr/Haslam Inquiry report published in July 2005 tell in detail how, over a period of more than two decades, according to many female patients, two male psychiatrists working from the same hospital were able to sexually abuse them. By the time police investigations and the Inquiry were complete, a total of 67 patients had declared themselves victims of William Kerr and at least 10 of Michael Haslam. Kerr was convicted in 2000 on one count of indecent assault. He was considered too ill to face trial but was convicted on trial of the facts. Haslam was convicted on four counts of indecent assault in 2003 and was given a 3-year prison sentence.

Highlights

  • William Kerr was disciplined in the mid-1960s when a psychiatric registrar in Northern Ireland for allegedly having sexual intercourse in his car with a teenage patient whom he told needed this for her therapy

  • Patients reported that Kerr exposed himself and ‘invited’ sexual acts - often masturbation or oral sex, but in some cases full sexual intercourse

  • No systems exist in the National Health Service (NHS) for carrying forward a continuous record of proven or unproven concerns about an individual as they change employer or organisations are restructured

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Summary

PETER KENNEDY

1000 pages of the Kerr/Haslam Inquiry report published in July 2005 tell in detail how, over a period of more than two decades, according to many female patients, two male psychiatrists working from the same hospital were able to sexually abuse them. Haslam was convicted on four counts of indecent assault in 2003 and was given a 3-year prison sentence. This North Yorkshire tragedy may have had extraordinary features, the Inquiry panel, led by Nigel Pleming QC, concluded that sexual abuse of psychiatric patients by mental health professionals is probably endemic and widespread. The 70 plus recommendations are for the entire National Health Service (NHS) and are designed to address the ‘cultural, systemic, and moral failures’ that allow repetition of such abuses without effective action.

Background
Some key issues
How common?
Some particular challenges
Findings
Some personal views and conclusions
Full Text
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