[2] A separate detailed study of recent inappropriate communications and approaches to members of the royal family found that 83% of the individuals concerned were suffering from psychosis.
[3] Similar findings have come from the United States, where forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz has written: “Every instance of an attack on a public figure by a lone stranger in the United States for which adequate information has been made publicly available has been the work of a mentally disordered person who issued one or more pre-attack signals in the form of inappropriate letters, visits or statements...."[4] The role of FTAC in the UK is to detect such signals, to evaluate the risks involved and to intervene to reduce them.
Although run by London's Metropolitan Police Service, FTAC is responsible for dealing nationally with the stalking or harassment of public figures by lone individuals.
Treating those with evident mental illness will have an important effect in reducing the level of risk to public figures, whilst at the same time improving the health and welfare of the individuals concerned.
When people are removed to hospital under section 136, they are examined by a registered medical practitioner and interviewed by an approved social worker, not associated with FTAC, in order to make any necessary arrangements for their treatment or care.
Eighty-six per cent of those assessed by FTAC were diagnosed as suffering from psychotic illness; 57% of the sample group were subsequently admitted to hospital, and 26% treated in the community.
They included Paul Mullen and Michele Pathé from Australia, co-authors of ‘Stalkers and their Victims’,[14] and J. Reid Meloy from San Diego, editor of The Psychology of Stalking.
[15] The series of research papers published by the group in peer-reviewed scientific journals forms the evidence base for the Fixated Threat Assessment Centre.