Broadmoor
From Dr J. P. T. Linhlater
Sir: Whilst applauding the refreshing natural loyalty and enthusiasm of your correspondent, Mr W. Barry Stone, Editor of the Broadmoor Chronicle (Letters, February 22) I feel that the time has come to make a stand for plain speaking. A man who commits a crime is a criminal, while a man who is insane is a lunatic. A man whose insanity leads him to crime is a criminal lunatic. Such a man has a defective character. Some criminal lunatics can be treated medically but some are simple psychopaths who, by definition, are inaccessible to medical remedies. Their defect is, therefore, irremediable and they are accordingly given indefinite shelter in a Criminal Lunatic Asylum. If such men are sent for treatment, then bureaucracy is using the word in some esoteric, confusing, Orwellian sense — pace Sir Ernest Gowers — while I was using plain English in the belief that a spade is a spade by any name and that, notwithstanding the current egalitarian nomenclature of the welfare state, inside every pompous Rodent Operative Officer is a genial rat-catcher struggling to get out.
Incidentally, if we don't lock up criminal lunatics at Broadmoor nowadays, what do we do with them?
John Linklater Kingsland, Fingringhoe, Essex
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