Street murder of police officer by mental patient 'was preventable'

Tennyson Obih was jailed for life last year for murdering Pc Jon Henry in Luton in June 2007.

Pc Henry was stabbed twice as he tried to arrest Obih in George Street, Luton, on June 11, after he had stabbed window cleaner Stephen Chamberlain.

The paranoid schizophrenic was under the care of the former Bedfordshire and Luton Mental Health and Social Care Partnership NHS Trust (BLPT), but had stopped taking his medication.

Yesterday an independent report from Verita, commissioned by NHS East of England, said the decision to close an early intervention service to save money was the starting point for the tragedy.

Report author Lucy Scott-Moncrieff said they found a series of "management and clinical failings" stemming from that decision.

She said: "The cumulative effect of these failings was that at the time of the incident Mr Obih's illness was untreated and his well-being was effectively unmonitored.

"We find therefore that the incident might not have occurred if he had been suitably treated and might therefore have been prevented.

"The starting point of this tragic case was the decision to close an important service to balance the trust's budget in line with its reduced allocation from the PCT."

Ms Scott-Moncrieff said Obih, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia in June 2004, moved from an in-patient recovery unit into his own accommodation under the care of the Luton Early Intervention Team in July 2006.

But in September that year that service was closed as part of cost savings required by Luton Teaching Primary Care Trust – now NHS Luton.

She said the service provided a greater level of care and supervision than expected of a community mental health team – which typically carried double the case load.

Obih was transferred to Luton South East Community Mental Health Team, where he received "considerably less" support.

He was seen 16 times in four months, compared with 36 times in two months with the early intervention team.