An attempt by Nadine Dorries to block a statutory inquiry into thousands of mental health deaths cost more lives, a bereaved mother has told the hearing. Melanie Leahy campaigned for years for a public inquiry into the death of her 20-year-old son, Matthew, and hundreds of other people failed by mental health care in Essex. It finally began last week after a long battle with ministers, including Dorries when she was a health minister in the last government. While delivering an impact statement about the 2012 death of her son to the Lampard inquiry in Chelmsford on Tuesday, Leahy said she had been “shaken to the core” to discover this month that Dorries had sent WhatsApp messages in 2020 describing how she was “picking off” families as part of an attempt to block their calls for a full public inquiry. In the messages, which were shown to the inquiry last week after being reported in the Daily Telegraph, Dorries told the then health secretary, Matt Hancock: “We’re not going there”, in relation to such calls. Referring to Leahy, Dorries said: “I’m picking off the other families and speaking to them one by one to get them onside to isolate her.” An independent inquiry was set up in 2021 but when many potential witnesses ignored requests to cooperate, it was put on a statutory footing in 2023. Last week the new chair, Kate Lampard, said it would examine “significantly in excess” of 2,000 mental health deaths between 2000 and 2023.
Leahy said: “It sickens me to think an elected politician would turn grieving families against each other. “This has only served to raise even more serious concerns, but this time about my own government’s transparency. This felt like nothing less than a full frontal stab in my heart.” Leahy, who will deliver another impact statement on Wednesday about the subsequent death of her partner, added: “It devastates me every time I think of the additional lives which have been lost, my late partner being one of them … and other patients who have been harmed in the three years of delay which [Dorries’s] decision to grant only an independent inquiry will have caused.” She said the last eight days of her son’s life under the care of mental health services, now run by Essex partnership university NHS trust, were “hell on earth”. Leahy said he was “alone, malnourished, over-medicated, scared, bleeding, bruised, raped, injected multiple times, ignored and frightened”. A jury at an inquest found there were multiple failings and missed opportunities in his care, she told the inquiry. Leahy said: “I hope his death will have a positive impact on the world and that I will be afforded the truth as to how and why he died whilst he was meant to be safe. I hope justice and accountability are afforded and necessary change is made for others who, like I, looked to services when they needed safe, compassionate care for their loved ones.” In a statement last week, Dorries said: “I fought for that inquiry to be put in place. I’m proud of my record of achievement as a health minister …. I spoke to all parents individually in accordance with their own wishes.”