‘We trusted the police with Jack. I wish I’d never called them’

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/may/01/jack-susianta-mother-anna-interview-inquest

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Nine months to the day after A-level student Jack Susianta, 17, drowned in the river Lea in east London, after jumping into the water as police officers chased him, his close-knit family and friends spent Friday evening in prayer.

Their service reflected the Hindu background of his father, Ketut, who came to London from Bali in the 1990s to be with Jack’s British mother, Anna. She described Jack as “hilarious, a joy, a person who always saw the light in people and brought a smile to their faces”.

Komang Jack Susianta was bright, diligent and planning to go to university. “He didn’t know what he wanted to be,” said his brother Sam, 21, who is studying economics. “That’s the beauty of being young.” At other times, Jack had told friends his aim was to become prime minister of Bali, an island he had visited often, to tackle corruption there.

“Jack had time for everyone,” said Anna, a former primary school head teacher and now a senior educational adviser. “He was a bridge between groups, and I think that was because he was mixed-race. Every night after his death, his friends gathered on the riverbank where he died. They are fundraising for a bench. They made a beautiful book. Jack’s spirit lives on in these inspiring young people.”

Friday also ended two gruelling weeks for Anna and Sam as they sat through an inquest that concluded that Jack’s death was a drug-related accident. Police threw Jack a rope and a lifebuoy, but exercised their right not to put themselves in danger by entering the water. Members of the public were also deterred. One witness said Jack appeared exhausted. “It’s just a river … I believe this boy could have been saved.”

Anna said: “We put our trust in the police when Jack was mentally very vulnerable, in the belief they would bring him back safe. Instead it ended in his death. I wish now I’d never called them.”

Are they angry? “As a family we are too broken to be angry.”

In their only newspaper interview, Anna and Sam talked with dignity and eloquence about Jack who, for the first time in his life, had become paranoid, psychotic and terrified as a result of taking MDMA at a festival.

This summer thousands of teenagers will attend festivals, as Jack did with friends last year. He left London on Thursday, 23 July, and returned the following Monday, agitated, tearful and distressed. He told his brother, to whom he was close, that he had taken MDMA. Sam took Jack to play basketball to try to ease his distress. Jack aimed a shot at the basket and said that, if the ball went in, he’d be all right – but he missed.

What unfolded over Jack’s final days offers important lessons for all the five institutions involved: the police, the ambulance service, the fire brigade – which was not called immediately when Jack jumped into the water – the East London Foundation NHS Trust and Homerton hospital, Hackney.

The family believe that, at the inquest, instead of “finding better ways” to handle teenage mental health issues, the institutions tried to put the blame on Jack for his own death. “It was as if Jack had got lost,” said Anna. “It was hard to keep hold of him.”

As that Monday evening drew on, Jack had become more paranoid. At one point he told Anna: “You are my mum but you are not my mum.” She made him lasagne, his favourite. Unusually, he asked to lie down with his mother and father in their bed. At around 8pm, shoeless and dressed in only shorts and a T-shirt, he walked out of the door. Police found Jack several hours later and took him to Homerton hospital as a place of safety under the Mental Health Act 1983. Jack refused to enter. “He wasn’t violent; he was just refusing to move,” said Anna, who was at the hospital. “He was scared, but instead of trying to coax Jack they told us they would have to use force. Jack was unwell. We thought it would be gentle restraint.” Two weeks ago the family learned that Jack had been subjected to a high level of restraint by a number of officers. CCTV shows one officer with his knee on Jack’s neck. Jack had a bruised face and a cut lip. He was placed in a cubicle, handcuffed with his hands behind his back. Anna said: “The police refused to removed his handcuffs even though Jack was distressed and crying.”

A junior doctor treated Jack gently and calmly and won his co-operation. “If the police had tried a similar approach, we might have had a different outcome.”

At 6am on Tuesday, a consultant psychiatrist diagnosed drug-induced psychosis, not emerging mental illness. Anna recalled: “She said, ‘I think he’s back in his right mind. Home is the best place.’ I was so relieved. I thought it was going to be all right.”

At the inquest the coroner criticised the consultant for not advising the family what do if the crisis should return, and will make recommendations on this in an official report. The Independent Police Complaints Commission is investigating the circumstances leading to Jack’s death.

The family’s solicitor, Tony Murphy, said: “During a mental health crisis, patients need a considered, caring approach – not to be restrained by police and released from hospital without proper advice.”

On the Wednesday afternoon, psychosis did return. Jack broke a window at home and jumped through it, cutting himself. The family called the police. Minutes later, officers by the river Lea gave chase. Anna was on her way to the scene in a police car when they heard the radio message, “This one’s a runner.” The police said they should return home.

“We thought that as we had passed care of Jack to the police they knew best,” Anna said. “So we came home. Ketut finds it difficult to trust now. He feels he wasn’t allowed to do what he wanted to do as a father, and be at the river to save his son. He is destroyed by being made powerless.

“Jack will never be forgotten. We look as if we are coping,” Anna adds. “But as a family we are in pieces.”