27 January 2000

Dear Dr Double,

You obviously feel strongly about these issues but please understand if I do not debate them with you. However I should clarify one point. In my email I said that the proportion of suicides and homicides that would be prevented by a community treatment order would be small. In your reply, you seem to have interpreted this as meaning that the effect would be negligible. This is not my view. Even a small reduction in these incidents would be worth having.

With best wishes.

Yours sincerely,

Professor Louis Appleby
Director