The real tragedy is (whether he is mentally ill or not) that he was allowed to have dogs again after he'd killed one in the same circumstances. If he'd be prosecuted and banned from keeping animals then he wouldn't have had any in his care, his mental state would have been immaterial.
Becky

I actually went off reading this thread once all the really unpleasant stuff about mental illness started being posted.

It's incredibly hard to understand just how badly your judgement can be impaired and how the world can seem utterly utterly distorted unless you've been there. It's no secret I suffer incredibly badly with depression (various reasons I fully understand, added with that my GP's a plonker)... when things are at their worst I feel like my brain is trying to function through a mixture of cotton wool and treacle, and like I'm somehow stuck behind a plate of glass from the rest of the world - I can hear them, I can see them but I can't "connect" with them. I function well enough at work (but I manage the work I do very very carefully to not make myself overloaded), but it's functioning level only... indeed when I came to the point of having a breakdown I taught an observed lesson incredibly well and was then found sobbing uncontrollably and shaking and just falling utterly apart at my desk a few minutes after the kids had left the building - my head, who'd seen me in action a few hours earlier commented that I seemed to be just fine back then but now she realised I wasn't well at all and just managed to separate off my work persona from the gibbering wreck that was me in reality (it's easier in teaching to do this I think when you even get called by a different name during the working day - my "Mrs Suit" is an impermeable bullet-proofed superhero outfit that grants me immunity to the rubbish going on inside)... and she kicked my backside off the school premises and threatened deep wrongings if I was seen again until I was truly better (I loved my old boss - she was fantastic in knowing when to be fluffy and when to deliver a good backside kicking).

I'm sure to the outside world I could quite easily have looked like I was faking it or similar then - I simply had coping strategies that had allowed me to function when I was in a really really diabolical mental state that were working so well (and unfortunately allowing me to push on and make myself iller and iller - think it took me a good couple of years to recover from that breakdown in the end) that it came as a collossal shock to everyone the day I fell apart completely (and even when I fell apart - I'd still held it together till I got the kids out of the school door). It took one silly catalyst in the end to unwravel the whole thing completely (for me it was seeing the newsletter announcing I was leaving - reluctantly - without expecting it)... so I can actually understand how a man who was ill to start with, suddenly seemed to do something so much on what looked like the spur of the moment with the suicide attempt - rightly or wrongly and I do genuinely believe he's got mental health issues.

Like I say - you really really can't understand just what it's like and it IS still this stupidly large taboo with people parrotting phrases like "trying it on" or "pull yourself together"... and that's why so far I've stayed away from this thread because the attitudes to mental health being shouted from the rooftops are really sickening to read as someone who suffers from it and has come very close to suicide in the past themselves.

Yep - the dogs died horrifically, yes, processes failed and people failed and the whole thing is hideous - but if you're suffering from mental illness the lack of clarity of thought you can have is really really hard to discribe (and incredibly frustrating when you're trying to think something through and your brain's doing the cotton wool thing).

Carry on baying for blood and calling all those with mental illness (particularly the "soft" ones like stress, depression and the like) fakers and ones trying it on for sympathy now

The real tragedy is (whether he is mentally ill or not) that he was allowed to have dogs again after he'd killed one in the same circumstances. If he'd be prosecuted and banned from keeping animals then he wouldn't have had any in his care, his mental state would have been immaterial.
Becky

I totally agree.

If he has mental health issues he should NOT have been put in charge of dogs.

As we know, he has already been responsible for the death of a Police dog previously through negligence - he should NOT have been allowed to have Police dogs again after that (or indeed pet dogs). He should've been banned for life, IMO.

I don't care if he has mental health issues - he can't have been that bad if he was still a serving Police officer and Police dog handler. If he was, then he shouldn't have been responsible for the general public in the Police force OR be allowed to be a dog handler.

I care about the welfare of the dogs. Sadly, he didn't care much about them and they died a horrendous death due to human negligence and stupidity.

I hope that neither you nor any of your relatives have a mental illness and if you do no one else has the same attitude.

It is easy to be self righteous when mental illness has not touched you.

You might want some sympathy if the positions were reversed.

As I said before 1 in 4 people have mental health problems at some time in their life, so hopefully you will be one of the 3 it does not touch!

I hope that neither you nor any of your relatives have a mental illness and if you do no one else has the same attitude.

It is easy to be self righteous when mental illness has not touched you.

You might want some sympathy if the positions were reversed.

As I said before 1 in 4 people have mental health problems at some time in their life, so hopefully you will be one of the 3 it does not touch!

I hope that neither you nor any of your relatives have a mental illness and if you do no one else has the same attitude.

It is easy to be self righteous when mental illness has not touched you.

You might want some sympathy if the positions were reversed.

As I said before 1 in 4 people have mental health problems at some time in their life, so hopefully you will be one of the 3 it does not touch!