Coroner’s Court Inquest: John Jones QC

INQUEST https://archive.is/OKVbu#selection-2721.0-3015.241 QC who worked on Julian Assange case jumped in front of West Hampstead train after being allowed out of private hospital 15:22 19 August 2016 | Rachel Roberts John Jones QC, a 48-year-old married father of two who worked at renowned legal chambers Doughty Street, was being treated for severe depression and had recently had his medication changed when he died at West Hampstead Thameslink station on April 18 this year. An inquest at St Pancras Coroner’s Court heard that the lawyer – who worked on high profile war crimes cases at The Hague – suffered from “obsessive overthinking” which had become prevalent following a stressful period in his life. He lived in Golders Green, and was staying as a voluntary patient at The Nightingale hospital in Marylebone in the weeks leading up to his death. The day before he died was a Sunday and Mr Jones had been allowed to visit his family. His mother, Peggy, met him in a local park, and told the inquest: “I was shocked at how thin he was. He couldn’t stop shaking, and I wondered what effect the medication was having.” He returned to The Nightingale in the evening, but complained of not being able to sleep at 1.10am, and was given medication. At 5.10am, he asked to go for a walk. Nurse Katie McTaggart said she allowed him to leave after completing a risk assessment form because she said he did not seem to be in any danger, and walking helped to calm his mind. At approximately 7am, the court heard that Mr Jones leapt to his death. The train driver gave a written statement to say it appeared to be “a deliberate act”. CCTV footage of the death was not played to the court because coroner Mary Hassell said she thought it would be “too distressing” but that she had watched it, and was satisfied that “nobody else was involved”. Recording a narrative verdict, Ms Hassell said she could not be certain that Mr Jones intended to kill himself because the balance of his mind was affected. Ms Hassell said: “John Jones died instantaneously when he jumped in front of a moving train. “However, the state of his mental health at the time meant that he lacked the necessary intent to categorise this as suicide.” Mr Jones’ wife, lawyer Misa Zgonec-Rozej, told the inquest: “I feel horrified that he was allowed out so early in the morning, in such a fragile state and without having slept properly for days. “I genuinely believe that John did not want to die, and that he didn’t know what he was doing (when he jumped).” Ms Hassell was critical of the fact that Mr Jones was allowed to isolate himself in the hospital and had not been made to engage with the various forms of therapy on offer. She said she would make a Prevention of Future Deaths report recommending that The Nightingale insists that voluntary patients participate in therapy, as Mr Jones spent most of his time there in his room, alone with his thoughts. Ms Hassell asked the consultant psychiatrist, Dr Pereira, who treated him, whether he would have had Mr Jones admitted to an NHS hospital if he hadn’t been a private patient. Dr Pereira said: “It’s a very good question, and I think the answer would be no.” He said there would be no reason to stop Mr Jones from leaving the hospital whenever he wanted, as he did not meet the threshold for sectioning, and was there on a voluntary basis. Ms Hassell criticised the “perfunctory” risk assessment form because she said patients could simply tick the boxes with the answers they knew would allow them to leave. The inquest heard that Mr Jones decided to stop taking Chlonazepam, a benzodopiate, a couple of weeks before he died as the combination of medication he was taking was making him drowsy and unable to concentrate. He had been receiving treatment for only a few weeks when he died, and was signed off sick from Doughty Street, where he worked alongside leading barristers including Geoffrey Robertson, Amal Clooney and Holborn and St Pancras MP Keir Starmer. Dr Pereira said Mr Jones felt “ashamed” of his problems, and was particularly troubled that he had to stop working on “a high profile case”. Although not named in court, it was well-documented that he was working on the case of WikiLeaks founder Mr Assange, whose extradition to Sweden Mr Jones was trying to prevent when he became ill. The court heard that Oxford graduate Mr Jones had some “financial and marital” difficulties, and had found relocating back to London after living in The Hague “stressful”. Mr Jones’ parents gave statements to say their son first displayed signs of mental disorder as a teenage schoolboy in the US. Ms Jones said her son enjoyed a happy childhood, spent partly in California when her husband, an academic, was at Stanford University, and that John had an “idealised” image of America. Although he went on to achieve great things, Mr Jones was expelled from a prestigious boys’ boarding school, Phillips Exeter in New Hampshire, for “several ill-judged, high spirited antics” – a source of regret which troubled him for the rest of his life. His mother said: “This became the focus of his obsessional thinking, and was a matter he would return to frequently, and during his admission to The Nightingale hospital.” Mr Jones then attended another boarding school in America – but became “deeply unhappy”, leading to psychiatric intervention and his return to the UK. Although it was suggested he may have feigned illness to leave the school, Dr Pereira said he believed this was a “hypermanic” episode – consistent with bipolar disorder, which Mr Jones may have suffered from. Mr Jones attended a private sixth form college in England before winning a place at Oxford – but the court heard that “scars from the American school episode” would resurface from time to time, causing him to “ruminate” on his life choices. His mother said: “He hoped, I think, that as my field was psychotherapy, I might be able to offer explanations – but I was unable to do so, and these could be dark, dark times for John.” Ms Jones said her son returned from The Hague in September 2015 in good spirits, but he and his family moved into a home which required renovating and he became “increasingly agitated and stressed” and had trouble sleeping in early 2016. She said her son talked about suicide “only in the abstract” and told her he would never take his life because of his children. As a human rights lawyer, Mr Jones had saved others from torture around the world, but told his mother his downward spiral into despair was “horrible pain... the worst possible torture you could devise”. Ms Jones and her husband, Hugh, had their son admitted to The Nightingale on Dr Pereira’s recommendation. But she said she was surprised at the atmosphere of the place: “It wasn’t that it was unpleasant...but the informality seemed out of sync with the seriousness of John’s condition.” She said she was “shocked” at Dr Pereira’s treatment of John, and thought he was trying to “break him” when he made a “dismissive” remark about “grandiosity” and told him he “had treated lots of silks and members of the government”. But Dr Pereira said he was trying to break down the stigma John felt about having a mental health problem by letting him know that it was common in all walks of life. Dr Pereira said Mr Jones was worried about “reputational damage” and would avoid walking around Westminster Magistrates’ Court – which is close to The Nightingale – in case he bumped into any of the barristers. Mr Jones’ wife said they had a “wonderful relationship” although John was someone who “often needed encouragement”. She described how his difficulty sleeping left him exhausted and worried about his ability to perform at work. “He started doubting himself and all the decisions he had made in his life. He felt he was useless and had failed. “Objectively, it was so irrational. He had a loving family who he adored, he was incredibly successful, and we had a positive future ahead of us.” She was “surprised” when her husband was diagnosed with bipolar disorder after a one hour meeting with Dr Pereira because she said: “John could be obsessive, and could ruminate, but he didn’t have highs and lows.” Mr Jones tried to get an adjournment on the Assange case in March as he was unable to work, his mind foggy with medication, but the judge refused, pushing him into “a dark, depressive phase”, according to his wife. Dr Pereira said: “He was very disappointed at not being able to do the case... He felt his career was beginning to unravel.” The doctor said that bipolar disorder was notoriously difficult to diagnose correctly, and that Mr Jones may in fact have suffered from a condition known as “obsessive ruminating disorder”. He said that Mr Jones was reluctant to open up because there were certain things he didn’t want to talk about and was convinced he would be “banished from the world” if he did, and that he felt “caught between the devil and the deep blue sea”. Mr Jones told Dr Pereira there were certain “trigger” words and films he had seen, any mention of which would set off his negative thought patterns. He left seven documents on his work computer, which police took from Doughty Street, in which there are clues to the workings of his brilliant but troubled mind. In these documents, Mr Jones said the boarding school which expelled him had been “the perfect storm of high expectations, lack of finance and failing at work” – circumstances which seemed to him to be replicated in the build-up to his death. He wrote: “Every morning I wake up with the mental pain of the fact that I was expelled from Exeter... the pain has not diminished... I feel that facing up to it may leave me unable to function... I need to be able to know that I suffered an adolescent trauma, that I’m not loopy now. I have suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder for the past 30 years... It’s a bit like Tom Cruise’s character in (the film) Vanilla Sky.” Asked if he would do anything differently for Mr Jones with the benefit of hindsight, Dr Pereira said he might insist that he engage with therapy from day one, but said: “Whether that would have resulted in a positive outcome, I’m not sure.” https://archive.is/OKVbu#selection-2721.0-3015.241 COMMENT That's some heavy stuff. If the video footage does indeed indicate without a doubt that this man jumped (and that he wasn't pushed), then I would be inclined to accept he chose to kill himself - even though people close to him deny this (as maybe it's easier on the mind of those left behind) - and even though the verdict wasn't 'suicide' (which I can't quite understand). Everyone's suicide is 'objectively irrational', but to the person that commits suicide, is it a decision to end great psychic pain that isn't necessarily as irrational as it seems to those that do not feel the pain or experience the feeling of being trapped with high levels of distress. If he wasn't pushed, I don't understand how a magistrate can rule that it was not 'suicide', whatever the state of mind.  If judging the act on the condition of the state of mind, then it's an odd ruling, when the state of mind appeared such that he was permitted to exit the hospital for a walk, only a couple of hours before his death.   Most suicides would probably occur in a distressed or disturbed state of mind or being.  Probably even those where suicide is a logical 'choice', because people feel they have no other 'choice' - as in the terminally ill, or, say, the Masada captives, 'choice' of death because the alternative is unacceptable. The obsessive aspects and rumination I can identify with:  I have a weird one-track mind, which is maybe some kind of an autistic mind.  But not the clever kind.  Very average kind of mind.  Jones' sleeplessness, depression, rumination and sort of obsessive feel-bad factor directed at the self (plus real world problems and medication switching), are a combination of factors that are maybe markers of when a person in distress may be most overwhelmed and most at risk of self-harm. There's heaps of things I feel bad about.  Maybe that's just the human condition that in a depressed state goes into over-drive.  When it's severe like that, directed at the self, enduring and combined with the other red-flag factors, it's not a good sign.  Think I've spent at least the last couple of years severely depressed, but it's just one long drag of a depression and disengagement with my material world, rather than an intense feel-bad depression.  It's more an apathy and withdrawal, with an intense focus on whatever far removed from me engages me.  In everyday terms, I'm disengaged.  But my mind is actively engaged in a form of escape that's probably not too healthy.  But I'm generally happy just doing my thing ... when I'm left to my own devices.  Dealing with my reality leaves me distressed.  Unreality feels so much better.  LOL I don't understand why he wasn't given an adjournment that he needed.  It's not asking for much, especially when Sweden and the UK Crown Prosecution Service have done nothing but collude to prevent an Assange defence, over the 6 years the journalist has been arbitrarily and undemocratically held prisoner by the state, over Sweden police concocted 'allegations' ... that Sweden has taken care not to investigate in all these years of dragging their feet and refusing to respect international law, by blocking both investigation and the POLITICAL asylum (rightly) granted to this journalist. Treatment of people who are mentally distressed would be very difficult.  Pushing people to engage in therapy and preventing them leaving clinics, when they are voluntarily admitted and show no obvious signs of psychosis, would infringe on  their right to independent agency as adult individuals.  It must be a really hard call deciding when it is important to step in and overrule the adult individual. Opening up to medical personnel about private thoughts, anguish, what one considers personal failings etc, would be very difficult and painful in itself, because it involves exposing the naked psyche to someone who isn't you and can't be you, can't live you, can't come to terms with you etc (as living and living with oneself and one's conditions is a DIY job), and it would probably add to the feeling of 'failing' and 'wrongness' of self, or whatever, having to expose one's psychic self to indifferent, professional, strangers. Maybe not everything needs to be examined and maybe pushing things aside - like bad feelings - isn't such a bad thing?   It works for me ... sort of.  Things rise up from time to time, but you push them right back down, have a good night's sleep etc, and things are brighter the next day. Examining why we feel bad about ourselves and digging up psychic wounds from the past is maybe a self-defeating exercise, because it sort of validates the 'victim' self or wounded self aspect, instead of the healthy self.  Not sure.  I've not really given much thought to this.  Just what popped into my head.  Thinking along lines of things that cannot be undone; the past cannot be undone. What about a program of radical self-acceptance that requires no examination of one's 'innards'?   That sounds a good treatment option to me.  It's terrible what this guy went through, and his death is such a waste of an intelligent mind.   But he's free now.  'Masada Sunrise' (photo:  Egged Tours) Masada (Heb. Metsada) - 70AD - 73 AD:  Radical Jews (rebels against Rome, patriots, true to Judaism) Sicarii and Zealots stand against pagan/Roman rule; last stronghold against Roman invasion (after First Jewish War and destruction of Second Temple Jerusalem 70AD); Zealots subject to 10,000 Roman troop siege at Masada (King Herod's citadel / fortress / Herod had ruled as Roman vassal:  Herod appointed King of Judaea by the Romans); scene of suicide (murder-suicide pact); urged by leader, Elazar Ben-Yair, to choose death as free men (and rule of god rather than Roman rule); death chosen, rather than submit to defeat and slaughter by Romans; lots drawn:  ten men as executioners.  Uncompromising stance of Elazar Ben-Yair against might of Roman Empire went against the Jewish people who were subsequently subjected to 600 years of Roman rule (until Islamic conquests). more history Sicarii / Siqari'im (Heb.) Sicarii  - Latin:  'dagger-man' - fm. sica, secor (to slice) splinter group of:  Hebrew Zealots (Tribe of Judah) splinter decades prior to:  destruction of Second Temple Jerusalem 70 AD opposed Roman occupation of Judea sought to expel the Romans & Jewish groups co-operating with Roman rule PROTO MOSSAD OPS SICARII - ASSASSINATION TEAMS Sicarii = fm  sicae (small daggers) would pull daggers to attack Romans & Hebrew Roman-sympathisers in public crowds would blend into crowd to escape detection after striking Sicarii one of earliest forms of organised assassination unit pre-date Islamic Hashishin & Japanese ninjas Sicarii victim:  Jonathan the High Priest (but may have been arranged by Roman governor, Antonius Felix) COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT BY ROMANS severe retaliation by the Romans on entire Hebrew population PRISONER EXCHANGE Sicarii could be bribed to spare targets eg.  governor of the Temple precincts (Eleazar) / released in exchange for 10 captured Sicarii assassins SICARII - FALSE FLAGS beginning of the First Roman-Jewish War, the Sicarii, and (possibly) Zealot helpers commit series of atrocities in Jerusalem to force population out of docility against into engaging in war against Roman occupation Talmud source: Sicarii destroyed Jerusalem food supply to force Jewish fight against the Roman siege instead of negotiating peace Sicarii leaders: Menahem ben Yehuda Eleazar ben Ya'ir important figures in First Roman-Jewish War numerous battles against Roman soldiers Victory Against Roman Garrison Masada 700 Roman soldiers garrison on Mount Masada taken over by Menahem ben Yehuda all 700 Roman troops were killed by Sicarii Victory Against Romans Antonia Fortress Jewish radicals overpowered troops of Agrippa II at Antonia fortress Guerilla Warfare various guerilla op on Roman convoys & legions in Judea Terror Tactics to Remove Romans Sicarii raided nearby Hebrew villages massacred 700 Roman women and children attempt to prevent spread of Roman generational rule 66AD Jewish Union Against Romans 66 AD - Sicarii, Zealonts & other rebels eventually joined forces to attack & liberate Jerusalem took control of Temple in Jerusalem executed all trying to usurp Sicarii (radical Jewish) power sieges and raids launched by local Jewish population to remove radicals radicals won:  Jerusalem in hands of Jewish radicals for next 4 years of First Roman-Jewish War Roman counter-attacks and sieges to starve Jewish rebels Jewish radicals internal dissent & lack of leadership; groups disintegrate Menahem ben Yehuda murdered by rival faction (legend:  before dying, promised to return before end of second fall of man) Romans destroy Jerusalem 70 AD Eleazar ben Ya'ir and followers return to Masada Sicarii and Zealots Jewish radicals continue to resist Romans to:  73 AD After the fall of Second Temple in 70 AD sicarii = became revolutionary Hebrew party, scattered abroad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicarii The Sicarii fight against Roman occupation is a little like the Palestinian fight against Israeli / diaspora Jewish occupation in the modern day. Stabbings happen in Israel frequently, only it's not professional teams.  It's Palestinian general public solo actions.  Palestine fighting Israel today, is like Judaea fighting the then Romans.  Israel has become the Romans and Washington is Rome.  But it is also something like the original conquest of the 'Promised Land' after the release of Jews from Egypt; only the conquests is as modern 'Romans' today. Judging by history, best course of action appears compromise.  But I don't think 'Rome' is intent on compromising.