‘Failings in care’ let schizophrenic flee and stab ex-banker

A SERIES of failings in care led to a psychiatric patient being able to flee a secure unit and kill a former banker in an unprovoked attack, a report said yesterday.

Paranoid schizophrenic John Barrett absconded from Springfield Hospital in Tooting, London, before stabbing Denis Finnegan who was riding his bike through Richmond Park.

The killing, on September 2, 2004, sparked a major independent inquiry, commissioned by the South West London Strategic Health Authority, into what went wrong.