What is going on over there?

[Bodacious]

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2005082504,00.html

Anyone have more details than this?

SOBBING 31-stone Chris Leppard was dragged off to a mental hospital against his will by meddling social workers and police.

Chris, 23, has been forcibly detained for a month because he cannot stop eating.

The authorities used powers normally used to detain mentally ill people who might harm themselves or others.

They locked him up despite the fact neither he nor his family wanted him to go. Last night Chris’s furious mother Anne said he has no mental problems and was winning his fight against the rare illness that compels him to eat.

Chris’s case was condemned by opponents of a nanny state. They asked whether others with life-threatening addictions could be next.

Mum Anne, 49, told of the agonising moment the ambulance came to take Chris — without warning.

She said: “Four people turned up and after some questions, said they were taking him away. Chris was really upset, crying, saying he didn’t want to go and that he wasn’t mental.

“We didn’t know they were coming to take him. He is being punished for being ill. He has a physical problem. He was working well towards losing weight.

“He asked social services to give him six months to prove he could lose weight. They didn't give him six days. I had stopped giving him money for food. For the first time in years we were getting somewhere. We had locked food cupboards, that was a big step.”

Chris, of Hastings, East Sussex, suffers from an incurable condition called Prader-Willi Syndrome. It means he can’t tell when his stomach is full and could eat so much that it will kill him.

East Sussex social services intervened after Chris appeared in a BBC1 documentary last month.

 

[Farrowlesparrow]

Hmm. I hadn't heard about this actually. But there is a difference between someone who is mentally ill being ocked up for the safety of others, and someone being locked up for their own safety. Instead of being detained, he should simply have been offered help with his problem. They could have paid for it, and it probably would have cost less than this.