It doesn't make it better if Jo Cox's killer was mentally ill

Yesterday one of our MPs was murdered, as everybody in Britain knows.

Jo Cox, MP, 1974-2016

There's been reports that the presumed murderer had mental health problems. For example, as I write, the Wikipedia page on her murder states "A 52-year-old former psychiatric patient was arrested in connection with Cox's death."

And the tone of a lot of the reaction to that is kind of "well that's ok then." I mean sadness about the loss but relief that it's not terrorism or racism or sectarianism or ...

No.

An oft quoted statistic is that about 25% of the population has a serious mental health problem sometime. So it's ok to paint a quarter of the population as potential murderers?

And just because somebody has had mental health problems, who says their actions yesterday were in any way related to their mental health? The police have - quite rightly - said nothing to indicate that, just as they have not indicated that it was related to the words the murderer supposedly shouted. We simply don't know the motive.

Let's say for a minute that the murder was in some way related to mental health. That is certainly a possibility.

Then what does that say about our society?

It says that we are completely failing to care for the mental health of our population, to the extent that they become murderers. Yes, there could always be an isolated incident where somebody snaps from nowhere, but then the rumour is that this person has had mental health problems. So where was the right drug treatment, the right talking therapy, the right care in the community, or if absolutely necessary the right hospitalisation? It wasn't there, was it?

So if it was mental health related, it doesn't make it better.

It makes it worse.