Where’s The Health & Safety Executive When You Need Them?

Picture the scene: I run a small zoo. I need a tiger moved from one cage to another.

Do I…

a) …arrange for a series of interlocking cages, or one secure box, to transport the animal safely and with minimal human contact, or
b) …give the zookeeper a rope leash and a piece of meat and ask him to persuade or manhandle this dangerous animal out of one cage and into another?

If b) then I’d expect the HSE to come down on me like a ton of bricks when my zookeeper is mauled to death. They’d be right.

Mr Burke had been "unpredictable" at previous hearings, the Old Bailey heard. Opening the trial, prosecutor Duncan Penny QC said Mr Burke had previously pretended to faint, collapse and go limp at court hearings.

Mrs Barwell had handcuffed herself to the defendant, which is standard procedure, when he collapsed to the ground. Three male officers tried to get him on his feet but he began to struggle and was restrained and handcuffed behind his back, the court heard.

Mr Penny said: "As he was standing up, the defendant was bent forward whilst Lorraine Barwell was standing in front of him attempting to control his head.

"He then appears to have lunged forwards and managed to kick out twice towards Lorraine Barwell.

"He seems to have kicked at her twice, the latter kick connecting with her head."

She died in hospital from a brain haemorrhage two days later.

So why are we treating the potentially dangerously mentally ill like human beings, capable of rational thought and self control, and not like dangerous wild beasts?

Is the ‘dignity’ of this man worth a human life? It would seem that the State thinks it is.