Copyright 2005 NEWS GROUP NEWSPAPERS LTD
The Sun

February 22, 2005

LENGTH: 440 words

HEADLINE: THE FAT POLICE

BYLINE: Jacqui Thornton, Health Editor

BODY:
Social workers lock 31st Chris in mental hospital because he won't stop eating

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. Anne, below with Chris, said she asked for the six months grace to prove he could lose weight. He was already on a diet and exercising.

But the authorities shipped him off to a specialist eating disorder unit at the Eastbourne Clinic where he will be assessed for up to 28 days.

Shadow Health Minister Tim Loughton was outraged. He said: "It's a taste of things to come if the Government's draft Mental Health Act becomes law. It will subject people who are not strictly suffering from mental illness, to sectioning."

Angry Libertarian Alliance spokesman Dr Sean Gabb said: "What on earth justifies the intervention of the police and compels him to have medical treatment?"

East Sussex County Council said "all proper procedures have been followed" - and such orders were "in the interests of that person's health or safety or to protect other people".