Jeffrey Barry: Brutal murder ‘could have been avoided’
Image copyright Avon and Somerset PoliceThe murder of a man by a violent schizophrenia patient "could have been avoided" had a medical tribunal been given complete information on his past, a report has concluded.
Jeffrey Barry stabbed neighbour Kamil Ahmad at their supported flats in Bristol in July 2016, hours after his release from a secure mental hospital.
Barry was detained after hearing voices and threatening to murder Mr Ahmad.
The report said the decision to release him had "tragic consequences".
A review by the Bristol Safeguarding Adults Board found that information sharing between Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership (AWP) and the psychiatric hospital where Barry was an inpatient "failed due to the absence of key personnel due to annual leave".
It said that systems "should have been robust enough" to have contingency plans for when "a key professional is absent from work".
Barry is now serving at least 23 years at Broadmoor secure hospital after being found guilty of murdering Mr Ahmad in a "savage and sustained" attack, in which he sliced off the Kurdish refugee's penis.
