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Inside the mind of a murderer, the power and limits a forensic psychiatry.

When I was called into a cessab, I needed to understand why he had committed such a horrendous

crime. But first, I had to get him to talk. By Tharj Nathan.

Red by Raj Ghatak. Produced by Esther Apokugeni.

Even before Seb had arrived at the prison, five weeks before my first visit,

the staff had received a notification that he ought to be subject to close monitoring.

While still in police custody, an out-of-hours forensic psychiatric assessment had been

requested. Seb had been compliant with the arresting officers, but he had given the impression

that he was unconcerned by what had happened. It seemed as though he didn't mind at all that he

was being arrested. More bizarrely, there were flickers of apparent self-satisfaction.

Seb had been arrested on suspicion of murdering his mother.

A nurse and the on-call doctor from the local forensic unit traveled to the police station,

but Seb declined to come out of the cell to speak to them.

Accompanied by police officers, the clinicians went to his cell to speak to him directly.

But whatever they said, Seb stuck to the same line. He had nothing to say to them.

He even resisted attempts to be drawn into casual conversation. The clinicians, along with the

on-call consultant, agreed that Seb did not require admission to hospital. Having said that,

this reticence, along with the particulars of the crime Seb had committed, left the assessors

reluctant to rule out psychiatric issues completely. The next morning, the doctor who had

...