A psychiatrist has just been sentenced to 18 months in prison for manslaughter following the murder perpetrated by one of his schizophrenic patients.
This is a first, and which is not without questions. A hospital practitioner has just been sentenced in second instance by the Grenoble Court of Appeal to 18 months suspended prison sentence for manslaughter following the murder perpetrated by one of his schizophrenic patients.
Chronic delusional psychosis
Almost ten years ago, Jean-Pierre Guillaud, patient of psychiatrist Lekhraj Gujadhu, escaped from the Saint-Egrève hospital center (Isère). Suffering from chronic delusional psychosis, he then got into a bus, went to Grenoble, bought a knife and killed Luc Meunier, 26, a mechanical engineering student.
“The justice recognized that this doctor was not concerned with the follow-up of this patient, and that his dangerousness passed by the trap. If there had been this concern, there would perhaps not have been the death of Luc Meunier, “said Me Hervé Gerbi, the victim’s family lawyer. For him, this judgment is “a warning against psychiatrists who think that the evaluation of the most dangerous schizophrenic patients would be a subordinate question: it must be at the center of their concerns”.
Shake up psychiatric practice
Very fragile, Dr. Lekhraj Gujadhur has now stopped exercising and is followed by one of his colleagues. For his lawyer, this sentence is a “big disappointment” and will upset psychiatric practice. was not prosecuted, “he adds, the Saint-Egrève hospital having been released at first instance.
The vice-president of the Intersyndicale for the defense of public psychiatry (Idepp) Norbert Skurnik sees in this court decision an “extremely negative message for patients, families and the population”, because it could encourage practitioners “not to send patients out, to prolong their hospitalization”. Remember that schizophrenics are not a criminogenic population. On 600,000 patients in France, there is a passage to the act every three or four years.
Highly publicized, the murder of Luc Meunier had pushed President Nicolas Sarkozy to demand a reform of psychiatry including new provisions on dangerous patients, which had provoked the ire of professionals in the sector.
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