
Families of Forbury Gardens terror attack victims call for urgent meeting with Health Secretary following Southport killings
The families of the victims of the June 2020 Forbury Gardens terror attack have expressed their heartbreak and frustration following the recent killings in Southport, which claimed the lives of three young girls.
Posted on 24 January 2025
The families of James Furlong, Joseph Ritchie-Bennett, and David Wails believe the lessons from the Forbury Gardens attack in Reading have not been properly acted upon, leaving the public at continued risk.
They say the same systemic issues highlighted by the Judge Coroner during the inquest into their sons' deaths appear to have been at play in Southport.
Jan Furlong, whose son James was one of the three men murdered in the Forbury Gardens attack, said:
“After all that we have been through and all that we have done to make known the failings that led to the deaths of our sons, what was it all for when the very same things seem to have gone wrong and three little girls were murdered in Southport?
“We have done everything we can in our boys’ memories to make sure the same failings didn’t happen again, and other people didn’t have to go through the same.
“All of the issues in Southport had been highlighted already in the Forbury Gardens inquest. It is terrible. Yet again someone has fallen through the net of Prevent, when for three years before the 2024 inquest into the deaths of our sons they were supposed to be making changes.”
The families are now urgently calling for a meeting with Health Secretary Wes Streeting to discuss critical shortcomings in mental health services for high-risk individuals that, they fear, could lead to further tragic incidents.
Separately, Jan and Gary Furlong have met with Securities Minister Dan Jarvis MP to discuss wider issues relating to security measures taken in light of the Reading terror attack, and have now received letters from Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to discuss these further.
The families say their fears have not been allayed despite the efforts of Paula Barker MP who has asked questions of health ministers.
James Furlong, Joseph Ritchie-Bennett and David Wails were murdered by Khairi Saadallah in a terror attack on 20 June 2020. Following a criminal trial, KS was given three whole-life sentences.
In a Prevention of Future Deaths Report, Judge Coroner Sir Adrian Fulford repeated criticisms he made in his inquest conclusion, saying there were notable failures on the part of multiple bodies which both probably and possibly contributed to the three deaths.
He made recommendations to the NHS Trusts that provide mental health services to high-risk individuals in the community and in prison, as well as calls to the Home Secretary, Justice Secretary and Thames Valley Police to closely monitor improvements to immigration systems and to the Prevent, Pathfinder and MAPPA programmes.
A common enduring error on the part of the bodies that came into contact with KS, a former member of the extremist Islamist militia Ansar al-Sharia, was a tendency to downplay or discount his extremist risk because of his diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and emotionally unstable personality disorder (EUPD). KS did not suffer a mental disorder or mental disability which lowered his degree of culpability for the attack, but failings by providers of mental health services were specified in Sir Adrian’s conclusion.
He said there was a failure by Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (BHFT) to provide KS adequate mental health care in the community, and by Midlands Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (MHFT) to provide him adequate secondary mental health care in prison.
Sir Adrian said consistent case management, care coordination and long-term therapy had the potential to reduce KS’s aggressivity, impulsivity and substance abuse. He said it was possible that the risk of KS committing a violent offence could have been avoided if his psychological difficulties had been addressed over the long term, in the community and in prison. However, KS’s instability in the community made him ineligible for treatment which may have reduced his risk to the public.
He recommended:
- Information sharing to the fullest extent permissible should form a part of the new ways of working which have been promised by mental health service providers, as this is vital for ensuring that high-risk individuals are dealt with appropriately and that opportunities for protecting the organisation’s staff and the public are increased.
- BHFT should regularly assess whether those who pose a major risk akin to that of KS are included rather than excluded by medium and long-term mental health services and receiving the support, treatment and coordinated care they need. The effectiveness of services should be rigorously and regularly assessed.
- Prisoners demonstrating similar risk factors to KS should be offered the opportunity to take part in long-term psychology sessions. Oxford Health Foundation Trust (OHFT), which now provides mental health services to HMP Bullingdon and HMP Huntercombe, should address this issue.
The victims’ families are disappointed with the responses from NHS England and the health trusts, saying the changes made or being proposed will not prevent future deaths without sufficient resources to implement them properly. They fear that, without more money, cracks will still exist in mental health services, and individuals with risk levels linked to their mental state will continue to fall through them. They are unconvinced that individuals who pose the highest risk to the public will receive long term, meaningful treatment, as opposed to ad hoc intervention in a crisis (as appeared to be the case with KS).
Inquest evidence revealed only one psychologist worked across HMP Huntercombe and HMP Bullingdon to treat a population of 1,500 prisoners, resulting in wait lists of up to nine months. Similar resourcing issues were highlighted in evidence from a BHFT community mental health team representative, who accepted that BHFT did not have the resources to put a plan in place for individuals like KS to address his repeated mental health crises after his release from prison.
BHFT’s response sets out a number of changes it suggested would improve services. However, the families point to inquest evidence from a British Red Cross representative, who reported that he had not noticed any significant change in terms of access to BHFT’s mental health care for individuals like KS, suggesting that the changes promised by BHFT were not having any effect.
The response from MHFT, which continues to provide mental health services support to other prisons, makes the families’ point that only properly funded mental health treatment will bring about change for such complex people.
MHFT told Sir Adrian: “We wholeheartedly agree that there would be a myriad of benefits to increasing the psychological workforce in prisons and in community services... MHFT would welcome the opportunity to employ more psychological practitioners in prisons, however given the constraints of our current budgets this is not possible.”
The families are also concerned by the response provided by OHFT, which sets out difficulties the Trust has had in recruiting psychologists to work in prisons.
On behalf of the families of Joseph Ritchie-Bennett and David Wails, Gary Furlong, father of James Furlong, said:
“We have carefully read the responses from the government bodies named in Sir Adrian Fulford’s Prevention of Future Deaths Report. We are particularly disappointed in the responses from the NHS Trusts. They list changes they wish to make, but we are concerned that these appear very ambitious to achieve without a lot of extra money.
“KS was known to the authorities, he had plenty of contact with mental health services, but it was all sporadic and crisis driven. He didn’t meet the criteria for long-term psychological treatment that could have made all the difference to his situation and avoided the deaths of Joseph, David and James. As far as we can tell, without serious money and serious investment in mental health services in this country, there will continue to be people at large who are a dangerous risk to the safety of the public as we also saw recently in the Nottingham knife attacks.
“We would like to meet Wes Streeting to talk to him about our concerns and our fears that what happened to our sons could easily happen again to other families.”
The families of James Furlong, Joseph Ritchie-Bennett and David Wails are represented by Leigh Day partner Benjamin Burrows, with solicitor Lily Hedgman and partner Fiona Huddleston.
Benjamin Burrows said:
“Our clients would like to sit down with Health Secretary Wes Streeting to help him understand the major crisis in funding for mental health services in the community and in prisons that they believe contributed to the risk posed by the murderer of James Furlong, Joseph Ritchie-Bennett and Dr David Wails.
“The three men’s families are not reassured by the responses from NHS trusts to the Prevention of Future Deaths Report issued by Sir Adrian Fulford. Indeed, the responses underline the concerns they already had about resourcing to mental health services in the community and in prisons.
“They are adamant that without serious investment to address the failings by mental health services outlined in Sir Adrian’s report, the dangers posed by high-risk individuals that were highlighted at the inquest are still very much present in UK society.
“No one wants there to be yet another family grieving a similar death and yet another inquest where the same risks contributed to by failings in mental health services are outlined yet again.”
After responses were provided to the PFD report, Gary and Jan Furlong’s Liverpool Wavertree MP Paula Barker asked questions in the House of Commons in regard to the mental health responses to the PFD report and their concerns about the steps being taken to ensure that there is adequate mental health provision to protect the safety of the public.
The three questions asked by Ms Barker, and the recent responses received from health ministers, can be found here:
In light of the responses received, Gary Furlong said:
“Jan and I are very disappointed with the responses as it seems to us that the Government have not fully appreciated the seriousness of the failings found at the inquest and the PFD reports issued in respect mental health provision.
“Without a commitment to making available the necessary resources so that meaningful change can be made, we do not believe that there is a willingness to get to grips with the issues raised by the Judge Coroner and the risks posed to public safety This is why we are seeking a meeting with Wes Streeting. We believe only he can make change happen.”