'We're living a life sentence': Family of man killed by psychiatric patient demand answers

Mr Stone's stepdaughter Vicki Lindsay said they were calling for an internal NHS Trust report to be made public so that lessons can be learned.

"The thought of anybody going through what we've gone through for the last six years… We're living a life sentence," she said.

On 28 February 2019, Lewis Stone was where he loved being most - the remote town of Borth on the west coast of Wales near Aberystwyth. It's where he and his wife, Elizabeth, had a holiday home and planned to retire.

That morning, Lewis left for his daily pre-breakfast walk with his dog Jock along the River Leri and never came home.

He was stabbed several times, and despite attempts to save his life, he died in hospital three months later.

Lewis's killer, David Fleet, was sectioned under the Mental Health Act after admitting manslaughter with diminished responsibility.

Sentencing, Judge Paul Thomas QC said Lewis had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Lewis's family disagrees: "I just want somebody to say, 'Yes, we messed up, we're sorry. It doesn't change things but we're sorry'.

"We've had none of that. Mum's had nothing, no support, she's had nothing. That's all we want, an admission."

Fleet was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia at the time of the attack and told psychiatrists if he had not stabbed Mr Stone, the voices in his head "were going to kill him".

Four months earlier, he had been detained under the Mental Health Act, but despite concerns raised by his own family, it was decided he should be treated at home.

The Hywel Dda health board told Sky News they don't intend to release the internal report into Fleet's care.

Sharon Daniel, the Interim Executive Director for Nursing, Quality and Patient Experience, said: "The Duty of Candour for patients came into force in Wales in April 2023. At the time of this incident and concern, we fulfilled our duties to be open."

When asked if they would be willing to apologise to both affected families, Ms Daniel said: "In the event of serious incidents, we have robust processes in place for reviewing internally, identifying any issues, and where appropriate preparing an improvement plan to prevent such an occurrence in the future. We regret such incidents and always seek to learn from them."

In February, victims' families in Nottingham won their fight for an NHS review into the care of paranoid schizophrenic Valdo Calocane, who killed three people, to be made public. It exposed a catalogue of errors and systemic failings.

The family's adviser and former NHS lawyer Radd Seiger, who also advised the Nottingham families, told Sky News the two cases have striking similarities: "Sunlight is the best disinfectant when there are problems in the NHS.

"Let's have these things out in the open. Yes, they're uncomfortable, but that's the only way the NHS is going to learn from its mistakes.

"It's no good them marking their own homework in private where journalists, or lawyers, or families don't get to scrutinise these things because we see that these things keep happening over and over and over."

David Fleet's family declined an opportunity to speak to Sky News for this report.

The Welsh government said: "We are fully committed to openness and transparency in line with the Duty of Candour to ensure lessons are learned. We have also invested in improving both the quality and safety of mental health care in Wales."

-SKY NEWS