A WOMAN who watched her son die after he cut his wrists and throat says she felt abandoned by Green Lane mental health hospital in Devizes when they did not help her, an inquest heard.

Terrence Andrew Bennett was Tasered by police at his parents’ bungalow in Hillwood Close, Warminster, after he had cut his wrists and throat.

Despite their efforts to save Mr Bennett, who was diagnosed with schizophrenic effective disorder and manic depression, he died on October 27, 2016 at around 12.30am.

In the 36 hours before he died, Mr Bennett had tried to take an overdose and had threatened his mother Mary, who tried desperately to get help for him.

On October 26, she called the crisis team at Green Lane mental health hospital at 7.30am but despite her pleas, no assistance came her way.

“I called the crisis team first as they opened early. I hoped they could help him and take him in,” Mrs Bennett told Salisbury Coroners Court on Monday.

“I wanted this for his own safety. I was told nobody could come out. I said he tried to take his life and that he was likely to do it again.

“I felt I had been abandoned. I was not told about what to do in this sort of situation.”

On day one of a hearing which follows an Independent Police Complaints Commission inquiry into Mr Bennett’s death, Wiltshire’s assistant coroner Nicholas Rheinberg told a jury that Mr Bennett had been staying at his parents’ bungalow since August that year.

He had been receiving psychiatric treatment for more than 20 years and experienced paranoid thoughts.

The inquest heard that his former GP, Dr Alan Greenwood, said back in 1993 that the then 22-year-old might be mildly psychotic.

Mr Rheinberg told the jury that Dr Greenwood described him as a ‘Van Gogh boy growing up in society’.

He added that Mr Bennett believed that he was being spied upon, that he could stop world disorders and bring an end to the conflict between Indian and Pakistan.

His mother Mary Bennett noticed a deterioration in his health when he came to live with them and on October 25 felt her son was potentially suicidal.

Explaining what happened then to the jury, Mr Rheinberg said Mrs Bennett stopped her son taking an overdose that night, and when he went to sleep she disposed of various bits of medication.

Mrs Bennett said at the inquest: “On the night where he nearly overdosed he told me, ‘If you call anyone I will stab you.’”

After not having any success with the crisis team in Devizes, at just after 9am Mrs Bennett called the team at Shearwater Lodge on The Avenue, Warminster, from where her son had received medication over the years.

Natalie Bellam, community psychiatric nurse at Shearwater Lodge, and another nurse came to speak to Mr Bennett, who had previously been sectioned under the Mental Health Act and was sometimes subject to a community treatment order to go to hospital, to check on his wellbeing.

“Terry said he had not been taking his anti-psychotic medication, Olanzapine,” she said to the jury.

“He talked about how a suicide pill is a coward’s way out. He wanted his mum to move to Wales and to change her name so she doesn’t have to take on his sins.

“He believed he had to be punished for what he had done in the past. He felt he was the reason behind 9/11 and Maddy McCann. He said his arms and legs should be cut off and his ears, eyes and tongue should be removed.”

The nurses told Mr Bennett to take his medication and it was agreed a doctor and a social worker would come round the next day to take Mr Bennett to hospital. But around 10pm Mrs Bennett found her son had cut his wrists.

When she tried to call for help he took her mobile phone and the house phone.

Mrs Bennett managed to go to her next-door neighbours, whilst her son was still inside the bungalow, in a desperate attempt to get help. He was then Tasered by police who arrived to find him bleeding.

The inquest continues.