Page 30 - Community Living Magazine 35-3

history
Absconding as an act of resistance

Escaping from hospital was dismissed by the authorities as the perpetrators of any agency and refused to
behaviour of ‘vicious’ or ‘discontented’ individuals but it was a accept that absconding could be inspired
by any genuine grievance.
feat of defiance, explains Susanna Shapland In reality, absconding was an act of

wilful resistance by individual patients for
he “unauthorised absence of a whom life in the institution – whether
patient from a hospital”, known as temporarily or on a more permanent basis
Tabsconding, has long been a – was intolerable.
regular feature in the annual reports of In the 1981 documentary film Silent
long-stay institutions. Minority, patients at Borocourt Hospital in
Historically, official records tended to Reading, kept unstimulated in a bare
downplay absconding as very rare and the outside compound for hours on end,
act of only the most troublesome and attempted to dig their way out. The
difficult patients. narrator acknowledged the act by drily
At the same time, escape attempts were noting “one or two still fight the system”.
portrayed by the authorities as genuine O’Driscoll and Walmsley found similar
causes for concern. Absconding patients examples of attempted escape as a means
were said to be at significant risk of harm, of “fighting the system”.
and were also considered potential Bronham House: rules were strict, and a resident “Patient 247”, who spent 44 years at
sources of harm to others. was not allowed to go outside to visit her aunt Cell Barnes, absconded because he
Official records also emphasised the resented being denied the experiences
damage, both emotional and practical, with learning disabilities, and those who of “an ordinary life”, such as work and
caused to hospital staff, in terms of the escaped were no exception. sexual relationships.
work this created and the professional Penalties for absconding were severe, Another patient, described as a
fallout in the wake of escape attempts. and extended to punishment not just of “professional escaper”, absconded using
Historians of learning disability David the patients themselves but also of many and varied methods simply because
O’Driscoll and Jan Walmsley sought to anyone assisting in their escape. Staff he wanted to leave and was not allowed.
reframe the official narrative on members who failed to stop their charges Margaret Day absconded just the once,
absconding from long-stay institutions by getting out could face dismissal. when she was moved from Cell Barnes to
examining it from the patients’ point of This tight control over the whereabouts Bromham House and felt ill-treated and
view instead. of patients was in part because these disliked by the ward sister.
Using official documents balanced by institutions relied on them for labour. These acts of reasonable resistance all
oral testimony from patients who had Certain trusted patients would help ended in failure and punishment.
absconded from the Cell Barnes and organise and care for other patients, The only way to successfully abscond
Bromham House colonies in south-east especially when staffing levels decreased was to have a supportive family waiting
England, they examined how big a after the Second World War. Moreover, outside. Although patient “AJD” was
problem absconding really was for the patient labour helped to provide forced to return to Bromham House after
authorities, and why patients felt driven institutions with an income. fleeing in June 1940, his family, who firmly
to escape. There were also fears that the believed AJD was kept at the hospital
institution would be held responsible for purely because he was a useful worker,
Restrictive rules any criminal acts committed by their unleashed such a battery of irate
O’Driscoll and Walmsley found that all patients while absent. correspondence that he was eventually
attempts even to go outside a long-stay discharged at the chairman’s discretion.
institution were rigidly controlled. Even Showing up the system As we reported in Community Living,
official leave involved a long series of More significantly, absconding challenged Alexis Quinn’s successful 2016 escape
correspondence between the hospital and the very existence of these long-stay while under section from both her
whoever the patient intended to visit institutions. mental health facility and the UK thanks
before it was granted. Often, it was not The official claims that they existed to to the help of her friends suggests that,
given at all. protect both the patients and the in some cases, this situation has still
For example, in 1944, Mary Bellamy was community, and that inmates were not changed. n
refused leave to visit her aunt, as infinitely happier and safer in a long-stay Further reading and a film
Bromham Hospital authorities believed hospital than they would be out in the Kelly S, Quinn A. “I escaped from hospital”. Nick Kingsley/Charles Hind Postcard Collection/Flicrk/CC BY 2.0
she was incapable of controlling her community, were fatally undermined Community Living. 2021;34(2): 16-17. www.
sexual instincts. by absconding. cl-initiatives.co.uk/i-escaped-from-hospital/
Like official leave, absconding The official response was to dismiss O’Driscoll D, Walmsley J. Absconding from
demanded significant amounts of absconding as a failing of a “discontented” hospitals: a means of resistance? British Journal
paperwork. The 1913 Mental Deficiency or “vicious” individual for whom of Learning Disability. 2010;38(2): 97-102
Act had created a byzantine web of absconding was just another “challenging Silent Minority. 1981. https://www.youtube.
bureaucracy around the control of people behaviour” – an argument that stripped com/watch?v=7Qb424HvKSQ

30 Vol 35 No 3 | Spring 2022 Community Living www.cl-initiatives.co.uk