A MOTHER says she is “terrified” the Government may not raise the Essex Mental Health Independent Inquiry to 'statutory' status to get more responses.

The inquiry wrote to 14,000 members of the Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation trust but just 11 have agreed to give evidence.

Maldon MP Sir John Whittingdale said that “unless in a very short space of time we receive co-operation, there does need to be statutory powers given.”

He said: “We need to get to the bottom of this. We need to find out – of this 2,000 figure of deaths which has mysteriously and suddenly appeared from the trust – what happened to those people.”

If the Government agreed for statutory powers to be given, it would force witnesses to give evidence under oath.

Melanie Leahy, from the Maldon area, launched a campaign after her son Matthew died, aged 20, at the Linden Centre in November 2012.

He was at the centre in Chelmsford for just seven days in the lead up to his death.

Melanie said she never felt she knew the whole truth about her son’s death.

She set up a petition to investigate alleged failings which resulted in the deaths of 11 patients.

The North Essex Partnership Trust admitted it had failed to “manage fixed ligature points in its inpatient units”, at a hearing at Chelmsford Crown Court in 2020.

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Mrs Leahy said: “We have long known that there is something fatally rotten at the heart of our mental health services in Essex that can’t be tweaked.

“The best illustration of this is that only 11 out of 14,000 potential witnesses were prepared to come forward.

“A combination of fear and indifference is not one in which the vulnerable will survive.

“It terrifies me that, with the addition of some reluctant last minute witnesses we may see Government refuse to raise the inquiry to the 'statutory' status it so desperately needs.

“Nothing has changed in all of these years and nothing will unless the people of our nation demand it unequivocally now.”