Don’t demonise Willoughby for his condition

DO we have to make a monster out of someone to get our kicks? Surely we can be sufficiently grown-up to look at the whole picture. We are neither the parents nor doctors of Brian Willoughby, and so we don’t know all the details of his personality, possible conditions or family life.

What we have read is that at the age of 16 he was diagnosed as a case of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) by Prof Michael Fitzgerald. This was years after the first signs of some difficulties. His parents, from what we have read, tried for nine years for a diagnosis.

Dr Deirdre Killilea, a renowned psychologist specialising in ADD, asserts that early intervention before the age of seven is the way to help children with this condition and to protect society.