‘Failings’ that left Bradford knife maniac free to kill his nine year-old brother

A report by Bradford Safeguarding Children Board (BSCB) revealed that despite a community psychiatric nurse visiting the family on the day of Jack’s death and a GP seeing Daniel Taylor, who was a long-term cannabis and alcohol abuser, neither was particularly alarmed by his mental state. Later that day Taylor used a kitchen knife to attack his brother in the kitchen of his sister’s house in Wibsey, Bradford.

The report, published yesterday, concluded: “Previous evidence of the child’s brother’s propensity to violence could not have led mental health professionals to anticipate the nature of his attack on his younger brother.

“The overview panel agreed that this attack could not have been anticipated with a high degree of probability by professionals involved with this case.”

But it added: “In hindsight it is possible to identify and collate risk factors associated with the child’s brother’s mental illness and his presence in the family home.

“There seems to be little doubt that known risk factors on his discharge from hospital should have alerted professionals to the probability that his psychotic illness and lifestyle would present a significant risk of harm to members of his family.

“This serious case review has identified failures in professional practice that might have better identified these risks and more effectively instituted arrangements to ameliorate/manage them.”

In January, a judge ordered Taylor to be detained indefinitely at the top-security Rampton Special Hospital in Nottinghamshire after he admitted manslaughter due to diminished responsibility.

The review acknowledged there were communication problems between agencies after Taylor left hospital in August 2009, where he had been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, to live at home with his family.

The report said: “On his discharge from hospital, the early intervention in psychosis team did not assess the risk of harm from the child’s brother as high and this meant that supervision and support for the child’s brother was not as intensive as it could have been.”

It added: “There is evidence of major miscommunication between children’s social care and mental health services with regard to the child’s brother’s unescorted leave from hospital and his eventual discharge home. Children’s social care first completed an initial assessment and advised mental health services that the child’s brother should not be allowed unescorted home leave because of the risk he posed to children in the family... this episode is mired in confusion.”

West Yorkshire Police are commended as Taylor’s “allocated police officer did everything within his power to draw professional attention to the brother’s mental health problems”.

Prof Nick Frost, independent chairman of BSCB, said: “This was a tragic event with terrible consequences for this family and their friends... clearly, all the services have lessons to learn from the way that they worked together and the way in which they worked with the family.”

Nancy O’Neill, for Bradford & Airedale Community Health Services, said: “There are things that clearly could have worked better.”