Family plea to put mother’s killer in high-security facility

Carstairs, Scotland’s State Hospital, only takes male patients.

In recent years a small number of women in Scottish prisons with specialist mental health care needs have been sent to Rampton high-security hospital in Nottinghamshire.

A review in 2021 said sending women requiring high secure psychiatric to England was “indefensible” and that Carstairs should be reopened to women within nine months. This did not happen.

However, the Scottish government said it was now proposing the re-opening of Carstairs to women.

Justice Secretary Angela Constance said: “We are planning for high secure provision for women in the State Hospital and work is at a very early stage.

“We are working with health boards to improve access to care for women requiring high secure mental health treatment and we will continue to do this as the longer-term proposition at the State Hospital is developed.

“My thoughts remain with Michele Rutherford’s family and I sympathise with everything they have gone through.