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People Who Just Appear: 'Roger Curry' Identified

AnonyJ

AnonyJ

Captainess Sensible
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Excellent BBC follow-up here - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38769685 - to the story of the man seemingly abandoned in Herefordshire who suffered from dementia but who had an north American accent. His identity was finally traced, not by the police but following from a single Facebook post to the BBC Midlands page after they covered the story. The gent only gave a name once: Roger Curry, but eventually his family was traced to California and it appears he may have been a trans-continental victim of 'granny dumping'

"Who was the abandoned man with no memory?


By Darragh MacIntyre BBC Panorama

  • 30 January 2017


Police and social services were baffled when an elderly man with an American accent was found lost on the streets of the English city of Hereford. He didn't know who he was or have any ID, and he was dressed in brand new clothes from Tesco. The quest to find out who he was had results that nobody could have predicted.

It was 7 November 2015 when the man was found in a bus station car park. Tests at the county hospital showed why he wasn't able to reveal his identity - he had dementia.

Sgt Sarah Bennett, from West Mercia police, was tasked with finding out who the mystery man was.
She initially assumed it would be a formality. Dementia patients regularly go missing and most are found in hours. But when she checked missing persons' reports locally she couldn't find anybody listed matching his description, so she expanded her search nationwide."
 
Heard the same piece on Radio Four as well. Missed the Panorama last night. Any additional insights? Dressing him head to foot in Tesco clothing, with no ID and no money or memories, then abandoning him, was arguably the functional equivalent of murder.

I sincerely hope he was oblivious to all of this. Poor guy.
 
Story reminds me a little of a recent case of mine- elderly lady with dementia. Family persuaded/cajoled her to give up her flat up north and come down here. They got sick of her so drove her to the local psychiatric hospital, left her there. And then drove off. That was it. She's ours now. Oh and the council found her "intentionally homeless" for "abandoning her tenancy" up north...right you are.
 
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Coastaljames said:
Story reminds me a little of a recent case of mine- elderly lady with dementia. Family persuaded/cajoled her to give up her flat up north and come down here. They got sick of her so drove her to the local psychiatric hostel, left her there. And then drove off. That was it. She's ours now. Oh and the council found her "intentionally homeless" for "abandoning her tenancy" up north...right you are.
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The family of my elderly neighbour did something similarly vile, he had a brother who has lived in France for 25 years (though has never learned to speak French) whose son had lived in the Phillipines for a similar length of time with his partner. Son had a stroke that left him severely disabled, he then gets deported from Phillipines to France, not sure of circumstances there, maybe just too disabled to file the correct paperwork.

Brother in France lets him stay with him for a few weeks, then decides he can't stick it so comes to visit my neighbour and moves in with him for 3 months leaving his wife in France to care for the guy. After the brother goes back to France, neighbour unexpectedly changes his locks.

Get told later that the brother stuck the guy on a plane to UK in his dressing gown with no money... no idea what happened to him after that. :(
 
OneWingedBird said:
The family of my elderly neighbour did something similarly vile, he had a brother who has lived in France for 25 years (though has never learned to speak French) whose son had lived in the Phillipines for a similar length of time with his partner. Son had a stroke that left him severely disabled, he then gets deported from Phillipines to France, not sure of circumstances there, maybe just too disabled to file the correct paperwork.

Brother in France lets him stay with him for a few weeks, then decides he can't stick it so comes to visit my neighbour and moves in with him for 3 months leaving his wife in France to care for the guy. After the brother goes back to France, neighbour unexpectedly changes his locks.

Get told later that the brother stuck the guy on a plane to UK in his dressing gown with no money... no idea what happened to him after that. :(
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Y'know, I consider myself something of an arsehole...but I couldn't imagine how anyone could do something so insufferably awful.

I had another client recently who had a brain tumour, then had an operation relating to this that failed. It left her wheelchair-bound, unable to speak and generally not doing so well. She had a stairlift in the house. Her adult children came to her house, dismantled and then took it away to sell. Leaving her only with the words, "we'll be back in a week to see if you've got anything else we want".

Just when I think I've seen it all...
 
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Coastaljames said:
Y'know, I consider myself something of an arsehole...but I couldn't imagine how anyone could do something so insufferably awful.

I had another client recently who had a brain tumour, then had an operation relating to this that failed. It left her whellchair-bound, unable to speak and generally not doing so well. She had a stairlift in the house. Her adult children came to her house, dismantled and then took it away to sell. Leaving her only with the words, "we'll be back in a week to see if you've got anything else we want".

Just when I think I've seen it all...
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I'm not saying this or the John Curry thing was justified in any way, but we don't know the whole story.
 
OneWingedBird said:
I'm not sure it matters that much. I don't rate myself as a particularly good or kind person, but I wouldn't do those sort of things even to someone I hated.
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No, neither would I.

But there may well be mitigating circumstances we are not aware of, that's all.
 
Coastaljames said:
Respectfully, I know a lot about the particular case I mentioned but obviously don't want to go into it too much here.
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Fair enough. I'm not suggesting it's acceptable to do what you described, but rather that in some instances there may be a more nuanced tale. What you described @Coastaljames is still contemptuous.
 
OneWingedBird said:
I tend to switch off to mitigating circumstances when things get that inhuman, it seems beyond mitigation.
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Aye it does, but most primarily learn how the deal with people from their parents. Some don't of course and 'rise above it'. But sympathy is not empathy and to practise leniency when circumstances were dire is a slap in the face for all those who faced the same circumstances and became decent people.
 
What a depressing day this is! All the stories on this thread, coupled with the ongoing troubles in the NHS, other news stories about old folk who have felt alone and lonely for many years, plus the likelihood of several care homes (in the SW anyhow) which might have close... To say nothing about the usual crime and cruelty in the news, and all compounded by screwed-up world politics... :(

Sometimes a suicide pill seems like a sensible option...
 
rynner2 said:
What a depressing day this is! All the stories on this thread, coupled with the ongoing troubles in the NHS, other news stories about old folk who have felt alone and lonely for many years, plus the likelihood of several care homes (in the SW anyhow) which might have close... To say nothing about the usual crime and cruelty in the news, and all compounded by screwed-up world politics... :(

Sometimes a suicide pill seems like a sensible option...
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We live in a country, and in an age when to be vulnerable is to be...well, vulnerable. The country has got very cruel.
 
Coastaljames said:
We live in a country, and in an age when to be vulnerable is to be...well, vulnerable. The country has got very cruel.
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Agreed .. move your arse across to Norfolk Rynn ... there's tons of carer people here who don't give a shit what the boss has just told them not to do .. I'd even introduce you to these tobacco and boozed up anarchists .. they're warriors .. I'll ask Elaine to visit you .. she's awesome .. she'd bring you some home made stew (whether you want it or not) and tell you dirty jokes .. a bloke I knew briefly dated her until she punched him for being a prick .. a Norfolk woman's what you want ..
 
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The goal of a good carer in the UK is to enable an elderly person to be able to stay in their own home for as long as possible, to support their independence as a back seat role and to listen and respect a service user (person) .. the only time I was instrumental in an elderly woman being taken into care was with ***** .. I went to visit her one day and she introduced me to a room full of people that didn't exist .. a completely empty room so I said "Hi, nice to meet you all" with a smile ... my co worker went round one day and she'd gone to sleep and left the gas on so he had to open all of the windows .. he also recorded in her daily diary that we had to fill in that he'd given her twice the amount of painkillers as allowed so I reported him for that and we haven't been good mates ever since . ***** was in tears when I went to visit her one day, I'd already spoken to her Son (I was in a different room of course) who'd called from abroad to ask me how she was doing. I told him in a non alarmist way the truth and admitted to him "Because your Mum's so proud and independent, we have no way of checking if she's washing herself everyday so in my opinion our company isn't sufficient for your Mum's needs (I never found any wet flannels, towels or shower on checking), I wouldn't be happy if this was my Mum" .. a social worker was there the next time I went around ... she asked me if ***** should be removed from her home, I knew ***** desperately wanted to stay (and I desperately wanted the same for her) but in truth, I had consider her safety and well being first which I hated myself for having to do. Her Son was a good and loving bloke, not short of cash either so he got her housed somewhere safer with wardens and her house was sold .. I hated having to do that but at least I knew she'd be safe ..
 
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I thought I'd bump my old thread about people 'just appearing' - Alex Batty, abducted to Morocco at age 11 has now just appeared in France, so some good news for a change :)

From https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/...igation-found-marbella-pyrenees-b1127025.html

"British teenager who was found in France six years after he disappeared will return home to England after he spoke with his grandmother, according to reports.

Alex Batty, now aged 17, was picked up by a lorry driver near Toulouse after walking alone on an isolated country road "for days", it was revealed on Thursday. He told the driver his mother had "kidnapped" him in 2017.

Alex, from Oldham in Greater Manchester, was 11 years old when he did not return from a holiday in Spain in October 2017.
He had visited Spain with his mother Melanie Batty and grandfather David Batty for a week long holiday near Marbella but a police inquiry was launched to find Alex after the trio did not return home as planned..."
 
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