05/12/2011 Inside Out West

Hello from Weston-super-Mare on the North Somerset coast. Tonight, we

are investigating mistakes made by the police after they received a

harrowing 999 call. I want to kill myself I want to end

it all. Why d'you want to kill yourself?

Christofer Walker was suicidal. He was taking an overdose of pills.

And when he turned to the police for help, they let him down. He was

at the end of his 10 there. He desperately needed help, so he

called the police. But the did not attend.

Also in the programme tonight Isambard Kingdom Brunel - brilliant

engineer or reckless blunderer? We meet the historian who argues that

we have got him wrong. People should remember that he was not so

per month. He did not do everything on his own and we needed do stuff

on his own, it was a dog's I am Alastair McKee and this is

Inside Out West. First tonight, a mother from here

in Weston-super-Mare who believes the police are failing in their

duty to help vulnerable people at risk of suicide. Carol Bagg lost

her son Christofer after he took an overdose of pills. This report,

from our health correspondent Matthew Hill, includes a recording

of Christofer's desperate 999 call, which some people may find

I think he was desperate. I think he was at the end of his tether. He

desperately needed help and he turned to the people we have always

I am in the street where police were called to the aid of a young

man who was threatening to take his own life and train out for their

help. It was in the early morning in February 2008 when Christofer

Walker made this distressing call It is harrowing because it is money

child. I do not want to listen to it any more. Christopher's mother

has been trying to find out more about the circumstances surrounding

her son's death. He was pretty desperate. He wanted somebody to

help him. He did not have been a credit on his mobile and the police

is the only number you could call. He specifically for the police.

Christofer knew the local police and had been in touch with them

before. He was a kind and gentle man. He was independent. He was

marginally autistic. He was slightly unusual and people like

that are generally bullied and taken advantage of, but he got on

with life. He was facing eviction from his form and that upset him. A

was that what was upsetting him the most? I really do not know if that

was it. He talked to his grandmother and then went back to

his flat. He talked to work late at night and then got a meal. And then

something went wrong. We do not know all went wrong. To this day,

Christofer made this emergency call at 125 in the morning. The police

operator correctly lob his call as the Dean and immediate response -

be raised priority which could be given. It means the police unit

should arrive at the house within As we come here, the operator asks

an ambulance service to attained. The vehicle is dispatched

immediately. The pill that Christofer has over does don't wear

for his heart condition and there is no antidote. The ambulance

arrived quickly, by 131 in the morning. But they had not been told

which of the flats Christofer lived in. He did not get any response

from any of the flat. The police should have been the within 10

minutes. The police despite richer decided to downgrade the call from

an immediate response to resolution without deployment. It means the

police will not attained. What happens next was a crucial delay.

The ambulance driver was unable to If the police had been there, the

police have the power to use force to enter the flat. Once more, they

had not passed on his phone number, so crucial minutes went by any.

When eventually the ambulanceman got hold of a neighbour he managed

to get access to Christofer. By this time, Christofer was extremely

groggy. It was over and all were later before he left for hospital.

If they had been able to do their duty as they were meant to do,

Christofer would have done what they had asked him to do. If they

had just said, Christofer, we need to get you to the hospital, he

would hold on immediately. At that point, Christopher's only hope was

that his stomach was pumped straight away. This delay of over

one or were made that was simply too late. He died at the hospital.

In mental illness charity has listen to recall and the case has

raised alarm bells. He was clearly asking for help and we now

understand that the police did not attained at all. The coroner said

that the police's failure to not attained had not affected the

outcome. But after a complete to the Police Complaints Commission,

they have admitted that there was a fault. We have apologised privately

to Christofer's mother. It is clear that this scene should have been

attended. It is useful to know some context. In the last month, we have

deal with 215 calls relating to suicides. How do you react to them?

The investigating inspector told us that if we knew what the other

units we're doing in the town at eight we may not be impressed.

you explain that? No, I cannot. What I am saying is that when you

have an immediate priority, we need to find the resources to deal with

that. Since his death, the Police Complaints Commission would

investigate if briefcases of the similar fashion. -- bereaved cases.

The deaths you refer to where between 2009 and 2010. What we have

done subsequently is introduced a new technology. The Independent

Police Complaints Commission has now made OECD's of recommendations.

They say that the system for vulnerable people needs to be clear

or and more consistent. Because someone who has the mental health

problem and feeling suicidal, there is this feeling that this is not as

important as some other emergency situation. Be need to get away from

it. The allegation is that maybe the police do not treat suicide

cases like this as a priority because of the mental health

issues? I totally refute that. We treat each case on its own merits.

For Carlisle, it has been agonising for her to relive the events of

that nature. It was the very difficult decision for us to take.

We hope it will bring about change, particularly regarding the police's

attitude to people with mental health problems. We do not want

another family to have to suffer what we have suffered.

Matthew Hill there on the tragic case of Christofer Walker. And if

you would like details of organisations which can offer

advice or support, you can call the BBC Action Line. The number is

08000 566 065. Your call is free from a landline, but mobile

operators will charge. The lines Next tonight, a controversial

attack on a man who was voted one of our greatest ever Britons.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel is prepared for the brilliance of his

engineering, but historian Adrian Vaughan believes we have

conveniently airbrushed out a side of Brunel which tells a very

different story. Do you want history or do you want a fairy

story? People should remember that Brunel was not Superman, he did not

do everything on his own, he did not think of everything on his own.

He had help and when he did think of everything on his own, it was a

dog' breakfast. I am Adrien Vaughan and I am a volunteer signalman on

the North Norfolk Railway. I have been on the railway for most of my

working life and have written over 30 books about its history,

including the work of a certain Isambard Kingdom Brunel. I do not

think we have got his history quite right, so I am going on a journey

to some of his great landmarks, from Paddington station... The

stage and began to lead sideways. To the SS Great Britain... It is as

if he hadn't heard of propellers. And Clifton Suspension Bridge. It

is a very long-lived fairy-tale. I am going to set the record straight.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel, 1806-1859, creator of the Great Western

Railway, creator of Paddington station. Had he got one hand

extended, it would be wonderful, we would be able to shake it. But

unfortunately he has not, so I must just pat him. Well done, is a bad.

Well done for creating the very first, I run glass industrial unit

in the world. But his design was not perfect. Brunel made one

strange error of judgment in designing this superb station. He

made these three arches and they are very beautiful. If you can

imagine taking away those that are going across, it is very essential

to that station, he did not put them into the original station,

because he did not want to spoil the symmetry of the Archers. That

was great, except that over a number of years, the station began

to lean sideways because there was nothing to tie them in and keep the

columns upright. So all the columns you see holding the roof up are not

by Brunel, they are made of steel and not cast iron and they were put

in about 1906 and in the 1920s before the First World War

intervened. They brought the roof back straight again. Not many

people know that. It is time to board the train to take me along

the Great Western Railway to continue my journey. There are so

many more, a little-known facts I would like to share with you. I

started to research Brunel, to write a book about him, and to my

amazement I discovered that he was doing some very silly things. This

is a terrific surprise and I believe it has even surprised a lot

of other people who said that I had denigrated a great man. I have not

really, I just told the story straight. In 1833, Brunel was

appointed Chief Engineer for the Great Western Railway, to devise a

route from Bristol to London. He had no previous experience in

railway construction. He laid a piece of track to try out his new

idea of putting big Telegraph poll size to pieces of wood into the

ground. That was every 15 feet all the way to Bristol. His idea was

that if he drove these deep into the grounds and then nailed the

track members, the track could not possibly move because it would be

held in position. That is a nonsense, because the weight of the

train running over the track crushes it where it is not

supported. Where it is supported, it is held up. You have got a 15 ft

of roller-coaster, doing this. How Brunel could have been so silly,

but that was him. And that was not the only delay he caused. We are

just going into the tunnel now. 3312 yards of blood, sweat and

tears of thousands of navvies, choking on the fumes of gunpowder

as they blasted their way through Box Tunnel. Brunel had terrible

trouble getting this built because he was such a bad employer that no

reputable contractor wanted to work for him because he would not pay

them when they had finished the job. The Great Western Railway was 18

months longer in the building because of Brunel. Now I am in

Bristol. There is so much of Brunel's work to see. But I was not

quite expecting to meet the man himself. Mr Vaughan I presume. A

pleasure to meet you, sir. Welcome to the SS Great Britain, perhaps my

greatest achievement. I believe it is a wonderful thing. It will be my

pleasure to give you a guided tour. I would be privileged. His weight.

The SS Great Britain was designed by Brunel for a transatlantic

service between Bristol and New York. She was the first, iron hold,

screw propeller steamship to cross the Atlantic, which she did in 1845

in a record time of 14 days. A as you are aware, the design for the

ship changed several times before it was finally produced and finish.

Brunel's indecision about the ship's design becomes clear as soon

as I am let loose to investigate by myself. Here we have in front of us

what seems to me to be the evidence of Brunel's not being quite

knowledgeable about modern developments in ships. The ship has

got a nice, long, straight looking Hull, but here we have this semi

circular cut-out and this is proved that the ship was originally

designed as a paddle steamer. It would take the extended box shape

that the wheel goes around in, that drives it through the water, so

they build the dock for a paddle steamer and the captain who had

designed this dock came to Brunel to say that a screw propeller ship

had arrived in Bristol docks. As soon as Brunel saw it, he was

immediately captivated that this was the new technology, this was

the way forward, the screw propeller. He redesigned the hull,

but we have this as a silent witness for Brunel changing his

mind, which was something he often did. And it is not just the captain

who we must credit for the design of the SS Great Britain. Becchio of

the ship, which was revolutionary at the time that it was done, was

patented by Mr Thomas. William Paterson, the owner of the shipyard,

helped to design the lines, how its curved out. They all put their peas

in and Brunel took their advice. The extra pairs of hands a Brunel

time to concentrate on this. Brunel made a lot of mistakes in his early

days on the Great Western Railway. It is therefore a wonderful to be

able to come along to a marvellous thing like the SS Great Britain and

say nice things about Mr Brunel because now I am standing

underneath this fantastic propeller, which is truly an amazing piece of

technology. It is all down to him and nobody else. He designed this

all on his own. I have learnt about Brunel from his own letters and

diaries, so it is a real treat to enter into a treasure trove of

archives was at the SS Great Britain. This is an absolutely

charming drawing done by him as a child. This is 1812. He was six.

is signed. This is the Brunel Institute. The collection opened in

November last year and anyone can come to have a look at Brunel's

notes and drawings. What we can tell from the sources in the

archive is that Brunel was a man of an astonishing range of abilities

with astonishing charisma, a force of personality and energy it.

it was Brunel's force of personality that could jeopardise

his projects. I do not know why he was always abusive to the

contractors. He always had to abuse them. I have often wondered why he

was like that. What is recorded by the abusive episodes. If you go to

the Public Record Office, you can read page after page, it goes on

forever. He is always abusing people and when they do a good job

by him, he turns around and says, I am not paying you. It is not what I

say, it is what he says. But he did have a softer side. He talks about

Clifton Bridge, my first child, my darling. He was a very sensitive

man. What is so striking is the emotional engagement with his work.

Well, Brunel might have talked about Clifton Suspension Bridge as

being his darling, but I dispute whether the bridge we have today is

his at all. Up here on top of the tower we have got three names.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel started it. John Hough sure, William Henry

Barlow, completed it. That was in 1864. That is the small print of

the Clifton Bridge. Because the truth is Brunel did not design the

Clifton Bridge, it was dying -- designed by the others. 24 year-old

Brunel designed his Bridge in 1831, but the project ran out of funding

and was abandoned 12 years later. Only part of the towers had been

completed. Brunel died in 1859. As a memorial to him, the bridge was

opened in 1864. But the new engineers did not use his design.

They added a third Tia to the suspension chains, so straight away

Brunel's design has been altered. The other thing they did was to

incorporate the latticework girder that forms the footpath railings.

That is part of the bridge. The third thing they had to do was to

take away Brunel's idea of a wood and it substructure underneath the

bridge. That was taken away and underneath there is a wrought iron,

riveted, latticework girder as a stiff neck underneath. The design

is completely different to the one that Brunel first put together in

1830. But someone is not going to let the sun set on this argument

quite yet. It is historian and Brunel in busiest, Professor Mark

Horton. This is the story of the bridge, pretty well OK apart from

one small detail. It was designed in 1831, rather than 1830. This is

the extent of the mistake. It is a very long-lived fairy-tale. It is

not. Like Cinderella. This is this great monument to his engineering

genius. Well, I am afraid, I think not. If you want a monument, which

of course we do, to Brunel's great engineering genius, you should go

down and look at the Royal Albert Bridge. There is a bridge and he

designed it. He also designed this bridge. The bridge was designed by

the others and in their paper to the Institution of Civil Engineers

in 1867, they describe what was wrong with Brunel's Bridge and what

they had to vary and rearrange. This is all Brunel's Bridge. No, it

is not, it is theirs on the side of Brunel's proposed bridge. I totally

disagree. Goodness, I think the two of us could argue this matter until

the cows come home. But it is nearly the end of my trip and there

is one last place I am dying to visit before I get on the train

back to Norfolk. Brunel designed the original station in Bristol in

1839. This is a photograph I took of it in the 1960s. Look at it now,

a venue hall used by the people of Bristol and beyond. I have to admit

it is an artistic triumph, but as for his engineering work... His

track was a joke. The Clifton Suspension Bridge has got nothing

to do with him. If they had put his desire up, it would have fallen.

The SS Great Britain was a great triumph, a tremendous work. But he

did not design it on his own. I would argue that Bruno should be

remembered as much by his blunders as for his brilliance. I think it

is time we set the record straight. -- Brunel. That is where we must

bring things to a close. If you would like to keep in touch, you

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