In July 2017, 15-year-old Becky Romero was found hanged at her home in Bristol.
Becky had been released from Pebble Lodge mental health treatment centre in Bournemouth. Prior to her release Becky had been prescribed with a new antidepressant medication, fluoxetine. Fluoxetine lists self-harm and suicidal thoughts as side effects in young patients. NICE Guidelines say that young people taking it need to be closely monitored for side-effects with a weekly face-to-face assessment.
About a week after beginning to take Fluoxetine, Becky self-harmed and less than 2 weeks later had taken her own life. Her mother had informed psychiatrist Adrian Marsden about Becky’s self-harming whilst in the treatment centre. Marsden denied this during an inquest and said he didn’t remember the conversation.
It has since been discovered that psychiatrist Adrian Marsden was found to be in possession of over 2,000 indecent images of children. After being reported to police they found 1,982 Category C images (‘Images of erotic posing’) and 42 more serious prohibited images showing ‘corporal punishment’ of children on his computer.
Marsden pleaded guilty to charges of making indecent photos of children and possessing prohibited images of children under the Protection of Child Act (1978) at Poole Magistrates’ Court. Surprisingly Marsden avoided custody and was instead fined £2,500 and given five year Sexual Harm Prevention Order.
Mitigating on behalf of his client, Mr David Hurley, said:
“He deleted some of the images as he knew what he was doing was wrong, but like a smoker who is trying to quit smoking who keeps some cigarettes he kept some. These, he looked at in times of trauma, such as when he was suffering depression in late 2017 and 2018 after being criticised at an inquest of a young person who took her own life.”
Becky’s mother Nicky told a Bristol journalist:
“How dare he use my child’s inquest as an excuse to use child porn? Everybody gets stressed at some stage in their life and everyone manages to deal with it without resulting to that. I said he was a liar before and he has proved it again. He again has managed to get away scot free.
“He’s a despicable man, he disgusts me. As a family, we are again devastated by this man’s actions. He worked in an adolescent unit where he took children into a little room to talk one-to-one with them. Yet he was behaving like this the whole time? I am gobsmacked.
The sentence was referred to the Attorney General for review with the suggestion it was too lenient. It was not taken further as the unduly lenient sentence scheme does not include magistrates’ court cases.
A petition has been posted requesting that he receive a more severe punishment of a prison sentence.
This is not the kind of person one would expect to be in a position of power and trust especially when it comes to children. Parents also need to be aware of the dangers of psychiatric drugs so they can make an informed decision about their child being given these drugs.
For more information about fluoxetine and other antidepressants download this booklet.
