IN-DEPTH: The Scandal of Killers in Psychiatric Hospitals Getting £11 Million in Benefits

Tedi Fanta Hagos (R) killed Steve Dempsey (L) in central London on July 1, 2021. Dempsey family/Metropolitan Police

The founder of a charity which supports the families of homicide victims says mentally ill killers are receiving more than £10 million a year in benefits and he says the money would be better spent on counselling and other services for the bereaved.

Julian Hendy, founder of the Hundredfamilies charity, told The Epoch Times: “This money could be better spent on services for victims’ families. For a lot of families, they don’t get any therapy or counselling, or it’s minimal. The government has a budget of only £5 million for the families of homicide victims.”

Kathleen Dempsey, whose brother Steve was stabbed to death by a stranger on one of London’s busiest shopping streets in 2021 says it is “unfair” the killer is entitled to benefits of up to £400 a month while her family only received £11,000 in compensation for his death.

Ms. Dempsey said after her brother’s killing, her mother had to move into a £4,500-a-month care home, paid for by the proceeds of selling her bungalow.

She said, “We only got £11,000, the minimum payout for a victim of crime. My brother looked after my mother. The CICA [Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority] said she was perfectly okay to live on her own, even though she’s 90, she’s blind, has epilepsy, she’s frail and can’t get across a room without a walking frame.”

Killers Getting More Money Than Victims

“They decided that she didn’t need to go in a care home. She could have just stayed there on their own. So the criteria for paying out, if you’re a victim of crime, is really high, they put the bar really high. But at the same time, if you kill someone, you can end up getting more benefits than the victims of the crime have received.”

The latest figures, from 2022, show 2,713 people in England and Wales are serving indefinite hospital orders with restrictions, most of them having killed people or committed serious violence during a psychotic episode.

Mr. Hendy said if all 2,713 were to claim the £80 a week in universal credit that Calocane is entitled to, it would amount to £11,286,080 a year.

Last month, there was widespread outrage when The Telegraph revealed Valdo Calocane—who stabbed to death three people in Nottingham during a night-time rampage in June 2023—was entitled to weekly benefits.

Barnaby Webber (L) and Grace O'Malley-Kumar (C) were both stabbed to death by paranoid schizophrenic Valdo Calocane (R), in Nottingham, England, on June 13, 2023. PA

Calocane denied murder but admitted manslaughter due to diminished responsibility, a plea which was controversially accepted by the Crown Prosecution Service.

He was therefore sentenced by Mr. Justice Turner to a hospital order, under section 37 of the Mental Health Act.

Because Calocane was considered an in-patient at Ashworth Hospital, a secure psychiatric facility on Merseyside, he was entitled to claim benefits.

The prime minister’s official spokesman said at the time he was “very concerned” and asked Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, to investigate the entitlement of Calocane and hundreds of other mentally ill killers.

Labour Says Loophole ‘Unacceptable’

Last month, a spokesman for Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour Party leader, told The Telegraph the loophole was “clearly unacceptable so we are urgently looking at it.”

Calocane was sentenced under section 37 of the Mental Health Act, where inmates are treated as inpatients and are therefore not barred from receiving benefits.

Last month, a woman, identified only as Amanda, posted on the Hundredfamilies website: “I work in a medium secure forensic unit and I can confirm that many patients detained on section 37/41 and section 3 and 37 notional are in receipt of universal credit and some are getting PIP [Personal Independence Payment] and most recently the cold weather payments and help with living costs.”

Amanda wrote, “Patients get hot meals four times a day, have no bills to pay, and also get money from the hospital for therapeutic reasons for cooking sessions. Some patients have disposable incomes of £800 a month ... which is paid direct into hospital finances or into their private bank account.”

She said some patients fritter their money away on “expensive trainers,” “tech gadgets,” and “smartphones,” while others accumulate thousands in their bank accounts.

While there is no way of verifying Amanda’s account, Mr. Hendy says, “I can’t see any justification for giving offenders who have committed very serious crimes money when they have no costs.”

Mr. Hendy—whose own father was killed by a paranoid schizophrenic in 2007—says there are between 600 and 700 homicides a year in Britain, and around 100—120 of them are by people with serious mental illness.

Steve Dempsey, 60, was attacked on July 1, 2021 by Tedi Fanta Hagos, an illegal immigrant from Eritrea, who was prevented from stabbing others by two skateboarders who intervened and knocked him out.

Hagos, 26, suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and was ruled mentally unfit to face a trial. In February 2023 a jury took just 20 minutes to decide he had committed the “act of murder,” and he was given an indefinite hospital order.

Ms. Dempsey said she did not know if Hagos was receiving benefits but she said she found it extremely unfair that he was entitled to them, considering her mother was only paid £11,000—the minimum payment—by the CICA for her brother’s death.

She also pointed out that elderly people living in care homes, whose fees are paid by the local council, are only given a personal allowance of £28 per week.

Ms. Dempsey told The Epoch Times, “It’s not about the money, but rather the lack of help given to victims’ families by the state. The loss of my brother was a terrible shock for us, I got depressed and my mother got post traumatic stress syndrome.”

“We got no help from anyone in our darkest moments,” she added.

She said her brother had never left home and was living with his elderly and partially blind mother in a bungalow in Southend, Essex at the time of his death.

Those, like Hagos, serving hospital orders already have their accommodation, food and clothing provided and Mr. Hendy said many of them spend their money on snacks.

Psychiatric Patients on Benefits Getting Fat

A research paper published in 2008 suggested patients receiving benefits at Rampton, a secure psychiatric hospital in Nottinghamshire, were becoming obese.

The study, published in the Mental Health Review Journal, “measured the impact of increases in state benefits on patients’ expenditure on foodstuff and consequent increase in calorie consumption.”

“The results indicate that changes in state benefits led to increased expenditure by patients’ on foodstuff and a significant increase in calorie provision,” said the paper.

Mr. Hendy said some leave secure psychiatric hospitals—after being deemed no longer a danger to society—having accrued thousands of pounds in their bank accounts.

He pointed out the case of Nicola Edgington, who killed her mother in 2005 and then admitted manslaughter due to diminished responsibility and was given a hospital order.

In 2011, Edgington stabbed to death a stranger, Sally Hodkin, 58, in a street in Bexleyheath, south east London, and attacked 22-year-old Kerry Clark.

An undated image of Nicola Edgington who was jailed for life for murder in 2013. After being released from a secure psychiatric hospital she killed a woman in Bexleyheath, London on Oct. 10, 2011. Metropolitan Police

A few hours before the attacks, Edgington rang 999 and said, “I need for the police to come because I’ve had a nervous breakdown before and I killed someone.”

Mr. Hendy said, “Nicola Edgington, who had earlier killed her mum, left that secure unit after amassing £8,000 in benefits. She was released and then killed another woman.”

Edgington is now in prison, having been convicted of murder and given a minimum term of 37 years in 2013.

Still Searching for Answers

Ms. Dempsey says the issue is for her less about money and more about getting to the bottom of why her brother was killed.

In November 2023 Ms. Dempsey wrote to the coroner, Fiona Wilcox, urging her to conclude the inquest into her brother’s death because of a number of unanswered questions which had not been aired at the brief “trial of facts” at the Old Bailey in February 2023.

She did not receive a reply but has since contacted Anna Firth, the Conservative MP for Southend West, who has agreed to write to the coroner to request the completion of the inquest.

Mr. Hendy said there was a “backlog” of cases at coroners’ courts around the country and coroners are coming under pressure not to hold inquests.

Ms. Dempsey said a number of key questions remained to be answered:

• Why had Hagos not been granted immediate asylum when he arrived in Britain in 2014, aged 17, and claimed to be a former child soldier?
• On what terms was he released from hospital in December 2020, two months after being sectioned under the Mental Health Act?
• What dealings did he have with the NHS during his time in Swansea and was he on medication at the time of the attack?

Ms. Dempsey said, “I don’t want money but I want someone to investigate what went wrong, I owe that to Steve. He seems to have been forgotten. The perpetrators get more attention than the victims.”

The Epoch Times contacted the Department for Work and Pensions but they did not wish to comment.