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Escaped mental patient commits armed robbery
Danny Brierley24 Nov 2008
AN escaped mental health patient is wanted over two armed robberies committed only days after he fled a secure unit which has a history of security problems.
It is thought that 44-year-old John Slavin got outside help to escape from Springfield hospital in Tooting, where he was being held in the run-up to a trial for aggravated burglary.
Police today released CCTV of a man they believe is Slavin entering a bookshop in Gloucester Road on Wednesday, where he threatened staff with a large knife before leaving with £90. He was charged with robbing the same shop in February. The Met also believe he committed a similar robbery at a clothes shop in Ledbury Road in Notting Hill on Friday, when a laptop was stolen.
A spokesman for South West London and St George's Mental Health Trust, which is responsible for Springfield, refused to comment but police warned the public not to approach him. A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "Slavin has a mental health condition which he is prescribed medication for. He currently does not have access to this medication and we would urge members of the public not to approach him."
In September 2004 paranoid schizophrenic John Barrett was let out of the hospital for an hour of "ground leave" and fatally stabbed cyclist Dennis Finnegan in Richmond Park.
Slavin is about 6ft 3in and anyone with information on his whereabouts should phone 020 8247 8734 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
Reader views (2)
I am an ex-employee of the Trust who left, blowing the whistle on the Forensic services. See Standard past.
I am still in touch with many of the staff there. Since my departure the management of the unit has, if anything, deteriorated.The levels of violence and escape are not replicated by any other secure unit in the country.
No manager has ever been held accountable for repeated and repeated, avoidable errors such as the multiple escapes of extremely dangerous people, the homicides by escaped and dubiously released patients,the homicide of my former colleague by an in-patient, the suicide of a young man whilst under close observation and the list goes on, and on.
At which point do the authorities recognise, while armed robberies of an escaped patient continue, that the incompetence of the Trust, riddled with retrospective apologies and temporary knee-jerk reorganisation, has reached a totally unacceptable level.
The secure unit needs to be shut down, and bulldozed. Its so-called managers need to be demoted to the level of domestic, at which no doubt they will struggle.
- Andre Downer, Sutton, Uk, 25/11/2008 09:03
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how is it that this man's photo has not been pasted all over the borough to warn people of this dangerous and mentally unstable offender? do the police think it is not appropriate to alert people? there are thousands of children going back and forth from school, women and carers who are vulnerable and yet there has been no warning except what is in this paper. who is the law protecting, the criminal or the innocent?
- C, essex, 24/11/2008 23:01
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