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Author
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Topic: UK man dies in his apt-- body discovered 6 years later
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Crippled_Newsie
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 7024
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posted 06 April 2005 06:01 PM
From The Guardian (UK):
quote:
A man lay dead in his council flat for almost six years before being discovered, an inquest heard yesterday. The fully clothed skeletal remains of Kenneth Mann, 63, were found last June on his bed in Walsall, West Midlands. He had last been seen in 1998 after being admitted to hospital. Richard Balmain, the coroner, said the former soldier seemed to have fallen through the net: "Society needs to ask how such a situation could arise in the 21st century." A succession of official agencies had gone to the door of the first-floor flat as Mann lay already dead. The inquest heard that a police officer had called, and so had bailiffs for the water company after bills went unpaid. Likewise there were attempted visits by his doctor, the Benefits Agency, and housing officials chasing unpaid rent. His brother had tried to visit. His neighbour across the hallway had not noticed anything wrong, the inquest heard. Housing officials from Walsall council served an eviction notice, but when he failed to reply they assumed he had moved. The Guardian has learned that the council had declared the home empty in May 1999. Mann was to remain undiscovered for a further five years.
[ 07 April 2005: Message edited by: Tape_342 ]
From: It's all about the thumpa thumpa. | Registered: Oct 2004
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Anchoress
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4650
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posted 07 April 2005 01:24 AM
His brother said: quote:
"Somebody let him down, somebody should have checked or kicked the door down."
Yeah, YOU. IMO it's more an indictment of the shoddy UK Council bureaucracy than it is a failing of humanity. The guy was dead. What difference does it make whether his body was found six hours or six years later? Except of course for the people who could have been living in his Council flat. 
From: Vancouver babblers' meetup July 9 @ Cafe Deux Soleil! | Registered: Nov 2003
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lagatta
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2534
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posted 07 April 2005 05:35 AM
I'm old enough to be peeved to hear someone of 63 referred to as "elderly" - know a lot of hard-working, vigorous and sexy people of that vintage - but I believe the meaning of "elderly" has shifted somewhat - it used to mean more "getting on", late-middle-age, almost old and in recent decades has become a polite euphemism for old, with the doddering connotations of the latter term. I think that shift might be slightly less accentuated in the UK. Working in a local community association, often with very poor and isolated people, I've often met people no older than I am who look and act "elderly". This gentleman who seemed isolated and at least semi-alcoholic would appear to fall into that category. There are many other isolated people whose pain is dulled instead with prescription medication. These seem to be cases of people who have given up on life - in my community association I've seen several older workers who were laid off from long-term jobs in trades and had no hope of finding another job - many of them give up in similar ways. I wouldn't be too hard on the brother - there are lots of reasons families fall out and often it is the isolated person, ashamed of being a loser, who breaks off contact. Odd, though, that the council didn't seem to need the flat!
From: Se non ora, quando? | Registered: Apr 2002
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