A dangerous and sexually disturbed patient is living in a York care home annexe - because no psychiatric hospital will take him in.

Rose Cusick, who runs The Cusicks care home in York, with patient Tom, whose face we have obscured to disguise his identity. Rose says Tom has attempted to rape her and needs a place in a psychiatric unit

Home owner Rose Cusick says the 18-year-old mentally handicapped man, known as Tom, has attempted to rape her and sexually assault another member of her staff.

And she claimed he would almost certainly attempt to rape or even kill someone else, as well as harm himself, if she released him into the community.

But Mrs Cusick has told the Evening Press she won't do this even though, under regulations, Tom should be free to leave and her actions risked the home being closed down.

She said there had been repeated but unsuccessful efforts to get him treatment at more than a dozen medium-secure units.

A place had finally been provisionally offered at a hospital in Northumberland, but a special unit would need preparing specially to cope with his violent behaviour and he could not be taken before March at the earliest.

She believed the offer followed Governmental intervention after the issue was raised with Ministers by Ryedale MP John Greenway.

Mr Greenway said he has protested about a "black hole" in the system, under which potentially dangerous patients are not dealt with appropriately unless or until they have committed an offence and go before the courts.

The MP, who has praised the commitment and dedication of Mrs Cusick, wrote in a letter to John Hutton, under-secretary at the Department of Health: "Everyone who sees Tom agrees that he needs treatment, but no-one seems able to provide it.

"Tom clearly needs psychiatric help with his sexual problems but, as the psychiatrists can pick and choose who they treat, it seems that no-one really wants to be responsible."

Mrs Cusick runs The Cusicks residential care home in Wentworth Road, The Mount, but said Tom was being cared for at an annexe elsewhere in York, the location of which she declined to identify. She stressed there was no risk to local residents from Tom, whose name has been changed to protect his identity.

She revealed that a Rampton maximum-security hospital psychiatrist had assessed Tom and that he had made determined attempts to rape Mrs Cusick and assault another member of staff, but the hospital could not accept him because he did not represent a "grave and immediate" danger.

Mrs Cusick thinks that if Tom was taken to court over his assaults, Rampton could treat him, but she has been determined not to press charges because she does not want him criminalised.

"He is sick, not criminal. I've seen what happens to people like him in jail," she said.

She wants more specialist secure units to be provided and a change in the system so that patients like Tom get treated before they commit a crime.

Meanwhile, Dr Bob Johnson, who has worked previously as a consultant psychiatrist at Parkhurst Prison and Ashworth Hospital but now practices in York, has contacted Mrs Cusick to say he is interested in trying to provide psychiatric treatment for Tom. He said he believed the case of Tom was "just the tip of an extremely noxious iceberg. There should be a major reform of psychiatry."

A long-awaited and potentially explosive report into porn and paedophile allegations at Ashworth Hospital was being published today.

Health Secretary Frank Dobson was making a statement to the House of Commons on the report by former judge Peter Fallon QC on the Personality Disorder Unit at the Merseyside hospital, home to some of Britain's most dangerous criminals.

see COMMENT 'We must close this 'black hole''

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