Officer's passion for the job died with his wife

By TONY WALL

Six weeks ago Trevor Burton traded in his police badge for a lawnmower.

The country lost an officer of 30 years' experience 18 months after the respected Queenstown sergeant lost his wife and son to lax mental healthcare.

Mr Burton is intent on seeing individuals pay for the "huge blunders" that destroyed his family.

His public campaign for accountability is far from over despite a report this week faulting Southland Hospital's mental health service.

Mr Burton's son Mark, then 20, stabbed his mother, Paddy, to death at her Queenstown home in March last year, 24 hours after being discharged by the service.

Since then, the police veteran has struggled to muster enthusiasm for a job in which he had prided himself in helping people with their problems, no matter how small.

"Unfortunately, I lost some tolerance. I lost my enthusiasm to try and help some of those people with their problems because I didn't consider they were very big problems in light of what we had been through.

"That wasn't good because it was not how I wanted to operate."

The Queenstown police area controller, Inspector Phil Jones, said Mr Burton had a rare ability to quickly sum up a situation and deal with it effectively.

"We've really missed him. The respect he gained in the community will take a lot of replacing."

Mr Burton is now running a lawn mowing and property maintenance business, but intends to see that the Health and Disability Commissioner's report is followed through.

The commissioner, Ron Paterson, found that Mark Burton's care was sloppy, lax and laissez-faire. The report said the Burton family had every right to feel the health system had failed them.

Mr Burton said his wife was with him and his two other children, Jodie, 20, and Paul, 16, every day.

He had received letters from about six other families whose loved ones had been killed by the mentally ill and whose pleas for help from mental health services had fallen on deaf ears.

The Takapuna born and bred man said there had now been three inquiries into his son's care, and all of them had found serious failings.

Now it was time for the Southland District Health Board to act.

"You get administrators and others saying they've improved their systems ... but it's all bullshit unless the individuals responsible for some of these disasters are held to account.

"I'm not writing off everyone in mental health and saying they're all useless because they're not ... I'm just saying the ones who have been proven to be woefully inadequate should face some disciplinary action.

"I'm not even saying that some of them won't in the future make good nurses or whatever, but those that have failed so miserably bloody well need some disciplinary action because the consequences have been so enormous." But he did not hold much faith in the board, which was "gutless" and had abdicated responsibility by waiting for an independent "director of proceedings" to decide whether any individuals should be prosecuted.

Mr Burton said he dealt with mental health services a number of times as a policeman, and was not impressed.

"It seemed to me that a lot of them didn't listen. Unless they saw it [strange behaviour by a patient] for themselves they hardly ever did anything.

"The point about mental illnesses is that it comes and goes. They're not constantly acting in a strange and bizarre manner. They can be quite lucid and sensible one minute and half an hour later they're talking absolute gibberish.

"Unfortunately, it seemed unless some of the emergency team saw it for themselves we [police] just didn't get anywhere."

Mr Burton said the failings in his son's care were mind-boggling.

His son was as much a victim as his wife.

"Paddy and I lost Mark, or the Mark we knew, when he became very sick and we did a lot of crying for him.

"We lost him and then of course with Paddy's death it's a double-whammy."

Mr Burton is hopeful that his son is finally getting the kind of treatment he needs.

Mark Burton is now being held at the Mason Clinic in Auckland.

Trevor Burton writes to his son occasionally, but he never hears back.

"I don't expect to - he's very ill."