A SCHIZOPHRENIC was found dead next to the body of his father, after being released from hospital on leave.

Doctors allowed Emet Makar, 26, to return to his father’s Westcliff home, despite earlier catching him with a knife and hearing him say his parents “sickened” him.

An inquest into the deaths at a house in Seldon Close, Westcliff, began on Friday.

It was told that two months before they died, the patient had tried to smuggle a knife into his mental health unit.

He told doctors at the unit he wanted to attack another patient.

When Mr Makar had been due out on leave again, he had confessed his feelings about his parents.

However, he was allowed out after his father, Adel Makar, 60, a respected orthopedic surgeon, told psychiatrists he believed his son was “just playing games”.

An inquest in Southend was told father and son were found dead on Wednesday, March 22, 2006, in the detached house where the former lived.

Mr Makar senior had been stabbed twice in the back. His body had then been washed, dressed and laid on the floor on its side with his hands under his face.

His son was found dead on the floor, with three ties tightly bound around his neck.

Police found no evidence of a struggle, or any sign anyone else had been in the house.

Emet Makar’s consultant psychiatrist at the Orchard Unit in Luton, Dr Robin Pinto, died in 2008.

However, a statement he had made after the Westcliff incident was read out at the inquest.

Dr Pinto describe his condition as “very difficult to treat” and outlined the discovery on January14, 2006 of a 6in knife on the patient when he returned to the unit.

The statement added: “Routine checks are carried out on patients returning from leave. He gave different accounts of why he had the knife, firstly saying he wanted to assault a fellow patient.

“Then he withdrew this and said he had just wanted it to showhe ‘was not a muppet’.”

Dr Pinto’s statement went on: “His father thought he wasn’t dangerous, but was simply playing games.”

Coroner Yvonne Blake noted for the record, had he been alive to testify, some of Dr Pinto’s evidence might have have been challenged by the barrister representing the Makar family.

Proceeding

 

EMET Makar suffered chronic and severe paranoid schizophrenia and had been sectioned to the Orchard psychiatric unit, Luton, in June 2005, after breaking the front door of a neighbour’s flat and threatening him with violence.

He had been under the care of the Bedfordshire and Luton Mental Health and Social Care Partnership since 1999.

That partnership became a part of the South Essex Partnership Trust in 2010.

An investigation by the trust and an independent assessment both ruled the deaths were not predictable or preventable.

However, investigators made 17 recommendations to South Essex Partnership Trust.

Among new policies were improvements to the trust’s record-keeping, because it was found that clinicians did not have Adel Makar’s correct address in Westcliff – despite the fact his son was only allowed out on condition he stayed there.