When Michael Stone told his social workers that violent thoughts were crowding his mind and were in danger of spilling over into actual violence, the law in Britain meant they could do nothing for him.
He could not be detained in a secure psychiatric unit because technically speaking, his personality disorder meant he was untreatable under the terms of the Mental Health Act. Several months later, he murdered Lin Russell and her daughter, Megan.
In an effort to close the legal loophole, which means people like Stone and up to 600 others designated as untreatable, "dangerous severely personality disordered adults" can be detained in psychiatric units only if they are "treatable" or sent to prison if they have committed an offence, the British government has put forward some controversial alternatives. The current provisions for dealing with people whose personality disorders manifest themselves in acts of violence, a relatively small number, are largely based in terms of dealing with a criminal offence.
If someone has committed a criminal offence, they are given a prison sentence, but it is pot luck if they receive mental health supervision or treatment while serving their sentence. Ending what he called the "artificial criteria" of deciding whether someone is treatable or not, the Home Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, and the Health Secretary, Mr Frank Dobson, have launched a consultation paper aimed at tightening legislation under the Mental Health Act.
First, the government is proposing widening the use of discretionary life sentences and ending the "treatability" criteria for detention under the Mental Health Act. Under the proposals, there would be new powers to supervise and recall to prison those former offenders suffering from personality disorders, if they were deemed a serious risk to the public.
However, the government proposal that has drawn much criticism from civil liberty groups is the plan to create a new indeterminate sentence for people considered a danger to society, even if they have not committed an offence.
People known to be a danger to themselves or the community could not simply be left at liberty, Mr Straw said. "That is plainly not meeting the civil rights of their victims or potential victims, neither is it meeting their civil rights."
This proposal, if it was law when Stone was roaming the countryside, may have prevented Lin and Megan Russell's murders, but how can it help people suffering from psychopathic disorders that may never offend, asks the Royal College of Psychiatrists?
"The issue of detaining people indefinitely who have not been convicted of a serious offence on the grounds of their potential danger raises profound issues of civil liberties," a spokeswoman said yesterday.
"Dangerousness is very difficult to predict. The college is strongly opposed to changing the present Mental Health Act to make it legal to detain people with `psychopathic disorder' in hospital against their wishes if they are deemed to be untreatable."
Likewise, the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders is outraged by the government's proposal.
The association's director of policy, Mr Paul Cavadino, said: "The proposals to detain non-offenders indefinitely is an excessive reaction to genuine and legitimate public concern. The government should be focusing on making care in the community work rather than using new powers of detention as a blunt instrument to manage people on the basis of what they might do."
Up to 2,500 people in Britain - 98 per cent of them men - suffer from dangerous personality disorders, but most of them are in prison or psychiatric hospitals.
Under this joint Home Office and Health Department proposal, the government aims to protect society from the minority in the community who could pose a threat but at present fall between the psychiatric services and prison because they are deemed untreatable.