English language newspaper for Ibiza, published and online every week.

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Grave Error
The Consell’s chief health councillor, Mercedes Prats Serra, admitted the system had failed in the case of the young man who started a fire, which caused the death of a 43 -year-old woman. José Antonio C.T. had only recently been released from prison on bail, awaiting trial, having spent six months in a psychiatric unit in Alicante. Initial reports indicated that the pyromaniac did not know the lady who died, but further investigations revealed that she had actually given the homeless youngster a roof over his head just three days prior to the incident.

The victim was the mother of two children and suffered a moderate form of mental disability which prevented her from working.

Further police investigations revealed the man had caused a similar fire just before Christmas last year in Calle Madrid, also in Ibiza Town, where he had been living in rented accommodation. In that instance, although nobody was injured, 20 people had to be evacuated from their homes, and he subsequently spent five months in jail. Prior to this, in October 2010 he had also caused a blaze in an apartment where he was staying in the Can Misses area and had been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. On the 23rd of August this year José’s aunt, Esperanza Torres Colomar, wrote a letter to the Diario de Ibiza commenting “so far there have not been any victims of any of his actions, but if things carry on like this, there will be and the politicians and professionals who know so much will be responsible”. At the time her nephew was in prison but she insisted that it was not the correct place and he should have instead been receiving treatment in a mental institution.
José received a small benefit payment due to his mental condition (thought to be in the region of €200 a month) which was not even enough to feed him. It was his grandmother who fed him each day, although she would not allow him into her apartment after he locked her out of her own home one day and left her in the street until the police intervened. She would either give him a meal or a sandwich to take away or sometimes paid for him to have a ‘menú del dia’ in a local bar. Occasionally Social Services would find him a job but that would never last more than a day, as he did not always take his daily dose of medicine and there was nobody to check he did so, ensuring he could be very temperamental.
José’s early days were very troubled; when he was a mere eleven years of age he reported his parents to the police for domestic violence and since then he and his mother, who also receives psychiatric treatment, cannot be in the same room as they fight continually. Since that incident he has been in various institutional homes until he reached 18, when he was sent out to fend for himself.
His father is from Morocco and returned home several years ago. About a year ago his son decided to find him, spending more than a month there without taking any form of medication. Eventually his aunt made the journey to Algeciras to fetch him, once he had been located by the police.
According to Esperanza, his aunt, the problem is that José did not ‘comply with a profile’ which would have seen him interned in a secure unit and he has since been passed from pillar to post with a lot of hand-washing going on and psychiatrists and psychologists reporting that “the patient is not sufficiently deranged to be locked up in an institution”.
Antonia Ramón, President of the children’s home where José Antonio (or Pep Toni as he was affectionately known) was in residence until his 18th birthday, explained that having come of age his attitude changed and he thought he could do what he liked in the world. He took possession of his bank book and withdrew all the money, which paid for his trip to find his biological father, who turned his back on him when he realised how conflictive his son was. After his return to Ibiza he was taken under the wing of the Aldaba Foundation which controlled his medication and his money, mainly to avoid him escaping again or spending the money which he had been given by his grandparents. Apparently he did not want to be free and could not cope with everyday life and felt the need to be institutionalized, even asking one of the volunteers “what do I have to do to be locked up?” He has now found out.