No way of foreseeing stabbing — coroner

THE brutal stabbing of a talented violinist by a paranoid schizophrenic couldn’t have been predicted or prevented, a coroner has ruled.

Jonathan Mills, from Chadderton, drove to Crumpsall and stabbed violinist Michael Kahan to death in a violent, unprovoked attack in June 2008. Only 10 days earlier, a medical team at the Pennine Care Trust had released Mills from a secure mental unit.

Mills’s parents told the inquest they felt more could have been done to help their son and prevent the events of that Sunday morning.

His mother, Patricia Mills, said she had been worried Jonathan wasn’t taking his medication and had expressed her concerns to his care co-ordinators.

She said: “I could tell from the way he was acting, he wasn’t taking his medication. It really went downhill in those seven days.”

Mills’s father, Barry, said: “In my opinion, Jonathan should never have been discharged. I had no idea he was going to do what he did. But they could have done a lot more for him.”

Manchester assistant coroner Sally Hatfield recorded a narrative verdict and concluded that Mr Kahan’s death was neither predictable nor preventable.

She said: “With the benefit of hindsight, one can see a chain of events unrolling. But all clinicians agreed there was absolutely no way of predicting or foreseeing what was to happen and I agree.

“There was no basis on which to suspect the patient would act in the way that he did or that he should have been back in hospital.”