The police want to delay publication of the report while they look further into possible prosecution. This could take months and delay the inquest. Our lovely CID guy explained their position carefully on the phone yesterday evening and was very clear about the various scenarios and possible outcomes. Big tick if anyone is keeping tabs on ‘learning’ from this beyond harrowing experience; being kept informed is crucially important.

Long discussion with Rich later. I agreed with him that we really want the report published now. We’d rather it was out in the public domain. Given that learning disabled people count less than non-learning disabled people, and evidence suggests that the high mortality rate among this group ain’t a priority, we’re not starting from a strong position to gain a criminal prosecution. And we’ve also been at the mercy of the consistently craphole actions of Southern Shite Health* for too long now.

We’d rather smash up the rulebook and not wait months to hear if there will be a prosecution. The inquest delayed further.

The depth and breadth of expertise of so many people on social media who are following what’s happening could shine an unusual light on the different issues raised in the report. Parents, disabled people, carers, academics, health, social care and legal professionals, mental capacity, human rights and policy experts, teachers, third sector workers, journalists, ‘general’ people and, of course, the real DN. The list is endless really.

If there is enough evidence for a prosecution, this will become apparent. If not, we’ll have generated a comprehensive discussion that should draw in broader cultural issues relating to being learning disabled in the UK. Because this was never about learning not to leave a learning disabled young dude with epilepsy in the bath unsupervised.

We’re meeting the police next week to discuss the publication of the report.

*Found out this afternoon that Southern S. Health passed on new documentation to Verita yesterday. Twenty weeks into the investigation and 2 days before the final report is due they discover that they didn’t send a full set of documents. No words really. Other than what a steamingpileofcrapshitewankstainballbags.