19th SEPTEMBER 2022. T-MINUS 6 DAYS AND COUNTING. The following is an exact copy of the letter that I sent to CAMHS Art Therapist, Sally Mungall, addressed to her using contact details made publicly available through her art therapy practice website. This letter is given context by the entirety of my blog posts here at www.fourandtwentydeadcrows.com and I will not make any further qualifying statements. You, the reader, can make your own judgements of me.

Dear Sally,

How are you? I hope life is being kind to you and that you are happy.

I was sad that you didn’t accept my invitation to call last Friday. I had laid my table for two and cooked dinner for us both but you never showed up. The flowers I bought are blossoming in the vase on the window sill but I’m sad that you didn’t get to appreciate them. The Chicken Paprikash that I cooked was definitely underwhelming (probably enjoyed best with a generous serving of good humour and only properly compensated by the apple crumble that I had bought from Waitrose ). I was left to mull over the rest of the evening and recalibrate my faulty sense of optimism, wondering as to why you hadn’t called and if you had either forgotten or chosen to ignore.

I had long anticipated the 16^th of September, the date to which I had once attached significance, and the dream that I might, at long last, see you again. I had written to you last March with the following words ‘September the 16^th this year is on a Friday. It will be the anniversary of the date that I first met you, Sally. I’ll cook something really special, lay my table for two and wait for you.’ The date that I first met you, Sally was actually September the 2^nd but wasn’t able to correct myself until after I had accessed medical records much later. That dream of meeting you again was filled with hope of happy conversation and the opportunity for you to finally see the lighter, funny side of me that you never ever saw during my ‘therapy sessions’ with you last year. That dream also allowed the chance for many of my questions, accumulated throughout nine long months of pain and suffering, to hopefully being answered, by you.

I wrote to you in March in deep despair at your silence, suggesting that if you did not contact me then I would take it as a sign and trouble you no more. That was before I had accessed my medical records held by Southern Health on behalf of the Bridge Centre and then later the Sussex Partnership on behalf of Camhs. Those disclosures changed everything for me. Since then I have seen it necessary to formally complain about the way I have been treated by both Camhs and the Bridge Centre. (I have since forwarded to you a copy of my revised complaint document issued to Wanda Reynolds via PALS. You received that on the 28^th July). That revised complaint document was informed by the contents of my medical records and I sent you a copy because I wanted to be sure that you were aware of what I was doing.

And here I am, appearing to go against my word and writing to you again. I am writing to you privately and hope that you are not troubled by reading this. I encouraged transparency in the 12 page letter I hand-delivered to you on the 23^rd of December 2021 and expected full scrutiny by Camhs leadership in all my emails sent to you through Camhs reception during the early months of this year. This is different and I hope you can read this and keep it private.

I am still suffering overwhelming pain at being abandoned by you. The intensity of the disappointment of the cancelling of our meeting of February 3^rd has never diminished while the memory of collecting my art therapy drawings still has enough potency to make me physically ill. For a long time I held Wanda Reynolds to blame. I made an attempt to take my own life last April and chose Wanda to be the beneficiary of a scathing suicide note. I was detained by Dorset Police and eventually released to return to Basingstoke. It was shortly after this that my medical records were disclosed by Southern Health. You’ll know what was disclosed and my reactions by reading through the revised complaint document that I sent you.

I recently wrote to Maria Miller, MP for Basingstoke asking for her assistance in bringing my complaint to satisfactory resolution and she wrote immediately to the CEO of Southern Health. Maria’s intervention has escalated the progress of my complaint against the Bridge Centre and I have been involved in intensive mediation overseen, personally by the Head of Nursing for Southern Health. Maria advised that I should take the Camhs part of my complaint to PHSO. Last Friday I received notice from PHSO that due to a Covid backlog I might reasonably be expected to wait as long as eleven months before being assigned a caseworker to look into my complaint. In my current state of poor mental health I would struggle to wait eleven days let alone eleven months.

I took my complaint to PHSO because PALS Sussex Partnership has treated virtually all 40 pages of my complaint document with contempt. There are significant issues around the way that I have been treated that amount to clinical malpractice and appalling injustice and staff that made decisions that had a seriously damaging effect on me need to be held to account. I have secured a general apology from Jane Padmore, CEO of the Sussex Partnership but there are questions that I need answered which, to date, have been roundly dismissed.

You’ll know, having had access to my complaint document, just how badly I’ve been treated by both Camhs and the Bridge Centre. I was lied to, deceived, misrepresented, monitored and surveilled, emotionally manipulated, wrongly pathologised and even potentially criminalised. Worse still, all of this happened covertly. I would not have even been aware had it not been suggested to me that I should request my medical records. I had been suspicious that things were happening behind my back almost as soon as I received the telephone call from Camhs reception telling me that ‘due to unforeseen circumstances, Sally would not be able to take any of her meetings for the week, including mine.’ Indeed, I noted your hesitation when I said to you ‘See you on the 3^rd of February’ as I walked out of the final review with Meg, Mark Birbeck and yourself on the 13^th January. My suspicions were well founded.

My medical records disclosed by Southern Health on behalf of the Bridge Centre were shocking.        

 I received them on the 15^th of June, less than three weeks after requesting them. I requested my medical records from the Sussex Partnership at the end of April. I’m still waiting for outstanding records a full nineteen weeks later and believe procrastination is a deliberate tactic designed to obstruct my enquiries and my wider complaint.

I need answers, Sally, answers that almost everyone at Camhs wants withheld. My only trusted confidante works in Information Governance and without her initiative I would have been left ignorant of many pertinent details including information of meetings that took place at Camhs, Brambly’s Drive during January and the early part of February this year. Decisions made during those meetings were foundational to the appalling way that I was treated by both Camhs and the Bridge Centre. Decisions made by those that attended those meetings have had a catastrophic, even life-threatening impact on me. I need to understand the rationale behind those decisions that led to me being lied to, deceived, misrepresented, monitored and surveilled, emotionally manipulated, wrongly pathologised and even potentially criminalised. I need answers, Sally. Can you help me?

Over the course of the last nine months I have been bounced back and forth by CMHT and iTalk ( neither wants to take responsibility ), now had three mental health assessments at the Bridge Centre and will have a fourth later tomorrow, detained and ‘guarded’ by two police officers for over eight hours and then assessed by a mental health nurse at A&E Poole, attended the Safe Haven in Basingstoke at least a dozen times, attended Wellbeing courses and have had constant check-ins from my GP and her mental health team to assess my risk to myself and am seeing a psychiatrist weekly at BCS and all the while trying to get social services and CMHT to do their job properly and take care of Meg. I was overwhelmed when I brought Meg to Camhs on the 5^th February 2021 but nobody helped me. Even you, Sally, insisted during the final review on 13^th January, that I should continue to care for Meg. Social services made many promises and even arranged two appointments that they failed to keep ( they didn’t even phone to say they couldn’t make it, they just didn’t turn up ). In the end I just broke.

And all the while I was trying to make sense out of the fact that you had abandoned me. I couldn’t understand why you had just walked away from me. I mean, you’ll remember our art therapy sessions together and how I had begged you not to go but you still walked away. I was cut off from you in the worst possible way. It was impersonal. It was done by proxy and with deceit. I never even got to say ‘goodbye’ to you and it hurt me so bad that I wanted to die. I still want to die. Kirsty Henry recognised my pain when she assessed my on the 8^th of February. She said I was ‘heartbroken’ and she was right. I saw a psychiatric consultant at the Bridge Centre last Friday and he said that I was ‘grieving’ and he was right. The pain is as intense now as it was back on 8^th February.

But, that wasn’t all of it. It was worse. My medical records disclosed by the Bridge Centre delivered a whole new kind of hurt. Those medical records are peppered with appalling accusations. I included the following in my complaint document,

My medical records are regularly punctuated with words and phrases like ‘risk’,‘ perceived threat to therapist’, ‘risk to others’, ‘infatuated with therapist’ ( that’s a demeaning way to treat my feelings), ‘should be reported to the police’, ‘she could be at risk’, ‘hence the police needs to be informed’, ‘stalking or threat to Sally should be reported to the police’, ‘presenting risks perceived and actual’, ‘ perceived risk to art therapist’, ‘potentially put art therapist at risk’, ‘risk to those around him’, ‘reports of fascinations with Sally’, ( that’s a really weird word to use ), ‘evidence we have of concern shared to police’,   etc’

God, Sally, that was the worst. I was going to ‘ask you out’ at the end of the meeting we had scheduled for the 3^rd of Feb and I was quite prepared to accept your rejection regardless of the pain but what was revealed in my medical records delivered a whole new kind of hurt. I would never hurt you Sally. You were NEVER at risk from me. I would rather be run over by a tank than allow you to be hurt. You should know that. I am NOT the monster.

My medical records show often contradictory quotes made by you and it is hard to know how you really felt. At times you are quoted as saying you didn’t feel at risk from me but at other times you are quoted saying the opposite. Your last words recorded at the time of the ‘Professionals meeting’ last February were ‘evidence we have of concern shared to police’,  

I have tracked records back to the meetings held by ‘leadership staff and clinical leads’ at the end of January and beginning of February. I can see that you and Mark had a meeting with Julie Yalden to formulate a plan that would eventually lead to deception, monitoring and more although large parts of that medical record are redacted. I can see the list of those copied into that plan and I already know from Wanda that she and Dr Natalie Roberts were either involved in those plans or advised on them. Those meetings were convened because of my 12 page love letter to you. How was it that my written words were so misconstrued? What was the rationale behind the decision-making that ultimately led to me being catagorised as a threat to you? Or a threat to other Camhs staff? I still have the original digital version of the 12 page love letter that I wrote to you. I have reread it ad nauseam and can find nothing malicious or threatening in those words. It was an innocent plea from my heart. It was naively romantic. There were no ‘veiled ultimatums’. What happened during those meetings that turned me into a threat? I desperately need to know, Sally.

Now I finally understand that you think I’m disgusting. I remember you saying to me during one of our art therapy sessions that the aura of disgust about me was so strong that you needed to ‘shower’ yourself once you’d got home after meeting with me. I now understand that. Your disgust of me is undoubtedly one of the main drivers motivating your decision to abandon me. Why on earth would you want to be around somebody you think is revolting? I accept that. It aligns perfectly with my own self image. I get it. I really do. But the other stuff, the accusations that I am a threat, that I am a ‘fixated’ ‘obsessed’ ‘stalker’? I cannot accept that. The way that I contend with my self-disgust is to cultivate the honourable man inside. I have been an advocate and a protector to my daughter, Meg. I am a protector of women. I have my reasons. That is how I value myself. Accusations that challenge that value are unacceptable to me. The idea that I am somehow perceived as a threat to you is untenable to me. I can’t get over that perception. I can understand your disgust and accept that but the accusations that are being made against me I cannot understand. I can NEVER get over that. And worse. The police were contacted. I was actually regarded as a potential criminal.

I had a long three and a half meeting last week with the Head of Nursing from the Bridge Centre to discuss my complaints. I have a specific complaint against Ian Whaites of the Bridge Centre and his accusation of ‘stalking’. It occurred to me, quite spontaneously while talking to the Head of Nursing that the best way he could empathise with me was to put himself in a similar position. I asked him how he would feel had HE been accused of child molestation or assaulting a defenceless woman. WRONGLY ACCUSED. He stared at me for a moment and I went further by asking how he would feel if those accusations had been entered into his medical records without his knowledge and that the police had been contacted behind his back and that he had not been given an opportunity to defend himself. His reaction mirrored exactly how I feel.

I have proposed, multiple times, that I be given the opportunity to sit in front of those that convened for those meetings at Camhs and to hear the rationale behind the decisions taken. I want to be seen as a real human being, damaged by those decisions and I want to see their reactions to my very real, enduring pain. My request has been flatly refused. I see it as cowardly that an entire cohort of mental health professionals do not have the courage of their convictions to face one small sad man. I have even suggested a concession that you ( but only you ) be excused from that proposal but that suggestion has fallen on deaf ears.

The other thing that I have asked for are the details of the actions taken by Camhs staff to report me to the police. I asked several weeks ago but no information has been provided. I have contacted Hampshire Police on this matter and they have told me that I need written consent of all third parties before I can be allowed full, unredacted access to data held on me. Hampshire Police are holding open my request until I secure that written consent. I explicitly asked Sussex Partnership for that written consent almost three weeks ago and have received nothing to date.

I have asked, repeatedly, that my meeting with you be reinstated but that has also been flatly refused. Is there any possibility that I can see you, Sally, even it be for one last time, to say ‘goodbye’ to you, at least. For the sake of closure?

I need answers to my questions. I want to know what your role was during those meetings at Camhs during January and February. Di you stand up for me or did you condemn me? Did you fight for the freedom to still see me or were you grateful for the opportunity to be rid of me. Were you ordered to cut me off? Was your job security threatened because of me?

And maybe answers to other questions related to our work together. I have been told by Wanda and others investigating my complaint that the ‘therapy’ you were delivering throughout ‘parent work’ was inappropriate and I have protested strongly against. The ‘therapy’ you were delivering was literally saving my life. Had Meg not been kept waiting for over two years by Camhs and had started therapy with Mark Birbeck much sooner then I would also have met you much sooner. Two years or more under your therapeutic care would likely have healed the trauma from my childhood and rebuilt me from the foundation up. There was nothing ‘inappropriate’ about the therapy you were delivering. It was spot on. There was also nothing ‘inappropriate’ about my feelings toward you. My love for you proves that I have the capacity to contain and express such a feeling as much as it also demonstrates my virtue to sacrifice myself, unconditionally, to another.

I would love to have been allowed to have been kept in close contact with you. Of course, I had romantic ambitions and would dearly have cherished the opportunity to prove myself worthy of an intimate relationship with you. You would have been guaranteed my love and devotion. You made me want to be a better man. You inspired my ambitions. You made me feel truly alive. You made me want to live again. I truly love you. I don’t care that you might have made mistakes that contributed to my pain. I don’t care that you misunderstood or misinterpreted some of my words. I don’t care that you might even harbour ill-feelings toward me or are disgusted or disappointed by me. I still love you. If I were to meet you tomorrow I would welcome you and have only love for you. I would talk to you without reprimand or repercussion. I would see your flaws and mistakes as you would see mine and I would still love you. I never idealised you. I adored you and that is a bit different. You are beautiful to me. Somewhat pretty but truly beautiful. It’s like you grew out of the earth, maternal and wise and of nature. I love your latest photo posted as a part of your Art Room private practice webpage. It’s the best photo I’ve seen of you yet. You literally take my breath away.

I hope you read this and are not fearful. I’m very sorry if I made you feel concern for your safety. I’m very sorry for making you feel it was necessary to contact the police. I’m very sorry if I caused you to fear over losing your job or if I affected your professional status. I begged Wanda not to reprimand you. I told her it was my fault and that I would rather jump off a cliff than push you over the edge of one.

You are welcome, always, to contact me. You can do it privately and I’ll accept you without fanfare and be discreet. You can come and meet me where I live or I can arrange to meet you in a place wherever you feel safest.

On the other hand, should you feel disturbed by this message and want me to leave you alone then just say. I don’t expect to be writing to you much after this. Indeed, this may very well be the last attempt of mine to reach out to you. There’s not much else I can think to say or do that might persuade you reach out to me. Regardless, if you want to tell me to go away then just command it and I will obey. There’s probably only a one in thousand chances that I’ll ever bump into you in the streets but if that happens and you want to risk offending me by turning in the other direction without even a ‘hello’ then please walk away. I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable on my account. You’ll be rid of me but I will still, always,  love you.

Yours

Mark

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