Mental patient had gone on run from Colchester care home before (From Gazette)

Mental patient had gone on run from Colchester care home before

11:00am Friday 5th March 2010 in

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FURTHER criticism has been levelled at a Colchester care home after one of its residents absconded.

The Gazette revealed on Tuesday that a teenager, believed to be 18, had got out of Maple Court care home, in Berechurch Hall Road, and broken into a nearby home.

He terrified the owner and broke into a garden shed, where he is thought to have drunk creosote.

It was not the first time the man had escaped.

Since then, two other concerned members of the public have come forward to speak of their encounters with the teen.

A woman, who does not want to be named, spotted him in Layer Road, Colchester, on New Year’s Day.

The man was almost naked, barefoot and appeared to have walked more than two miles from the care home.

She said: “He was wandering around in a pair of underpants and nothing else. God knows how long he’d been walking – we found him near the former Kent Blaxill site.

“At first, we thought someone was out running, and thought they’d freeze. I then said to my husband we had to pull over, something wasn’t right.

“We asked him if he was ok and he said ‘got to keep walking, got to keep walking’.”

The couple persuaded him to get into the back of their car, and kept him there until the police arrived.

After reading about his latest escapade, the woman called for serious questions to be asked.

She said: “I can’t believe they let him get out.

“He is so vulnerable. I don’t think he’s intentionally going to harm someone, but he could hurt someone or, more importantly, himself.

“He shouldn’t be in that home. He obviously needs to be somewhere more secure.”

In the second incident, after he burst into Mick Hawken’s home on Saturday night and before police caught him, the teenager almost caused an accident outside Clarice House gym, in Layer Road.

Paula Newson, who lives off Straight Road, Colchester, was driving along with her one-year-old child in the back, when she saw the youth.

She said: “He picked up a branch and threw it in front of the car. It wasn’t a large twig, this was a full-on branch. If I hadn’t had my wits about me and stamped on the brakes, it could have been a serious accident.

“I am obviously extremely concerned the security isn’t what it should be at the care home.”

No further action has been taken against the youth.