THE Duke of Hamilton's widow has called for a change in the law surrounding the detention of people in psychiatric hospitals.
Lady Hamilton wants to stop people being held in such institutions on the orders of just two people, backing campaigners' demands for forced detentions to be approved instead by a panel of experts.
She made the call as she recalled her experiences of the 2009 detention of her husband when he was suffering from dementia. He died in June 2010 at the age of 71.
Lady Hamilton said that her husband had been cared for at home until a psychiatrist suggested they go to hospital to check his medication.
She said she was led to believe it would be for a short period but found out her husband had actually been sectioned for 28 days - something that "really upset" him.
She said: "I could hear him calling for me: 'Kay, Kay'."
"I said, 'It's alright pet. You're here voluntarily, you can come home if you want to'.
"Then a voice behind said, 'No he can't. He's been sectioned for 28 days and he may not get out then'."
She recalled seeing him try to escape from a first-floor window on one occasion.
She said: "He rushed out into my arms saying, 'home' and then they had to pull him away from me," she said.
"I thought 'if this can happen to the Duke of Hamilton, what chance has Joe Bloggs got?'"
He was later discharged but Lady Hamilton said she believed the episode hastened his death.
She is now calling on the Scottish Parliament to examine changes to Scotland's Mental Health Act, which allows for a person's detention against their will if a doctor and a mental health officer agree that they suffer from a mental disorder.
She said: "Please look at this Act and implement something to prevent this happening."
A spokeswoman for Alzheimer Scotland said while there were clearly failures in the case of the Duke of Hamilton it was not necessarily indicative of the wider situation.
She said: "There is always room for improvement. The Act is up for review which gives us the ideal opportunity to for us to consider what needs to be changed.
"Our understanding of what is needed in caring for people with dementia has evolved quite considerably since the Act first came into force.
"Despite this instance with the Duke of Hamilton, where there was a real failure of practice, on the whole when the act is used by properly by informed staff, it is generally used appropriately."
Angus Douglas-Hamilton was born in London in 1938 and was the eldest son of the 14th Duke of Hamilton.
The duke held the role of Premier Peer of Scotland and was the Hereditary Keeper of the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the Queen's official residence in Scotland.
He could trace his ancestry back to Mary Queen of Scots and was custodian of the family's 14th-century seat, Lennoxlove House in East Lothian.
The Hamilton dukedom is the oldest in Scotland, dating back to the mid-17th century.
Unlike his politically active brother Lord James Douglas Hamilton, the duke's Westminster involvement was largely confined to work on the European sub-committee on energy and transport in the 1970s. However, he was the bearer of the Crown of Scotland at the inauguration of the Scottish Parliament in 1999.
He had dukes on both sides of his family with his mother Lady Elizabeth Percy the elder daughter of the Eighth Duke of Northumberland.
His father the 14th Duke of Hamilton cut a more prominent public figure. In 1933 he had become the first to fly over Everest, and in 1941 took the news to Churchill that Rudolf Hess, Hitler's deputy, had landed in Scotland to seek him out.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article