This is the second edition of a work published four years ago as Mental Health: the New Law.
Author: Phil Fennell
Publisher: Jordans, 2nd edition
ISBN: 978 1 84661 240 4 Price: £55.00
It has 12 chapters and an appendix that contains the entire Mental Health Act 1983 (and itself accounts for more than a quarter of the book).
The chapters of this edition resemble those of the last, and cover such things as the criteria for detention; the safeguards offered by advocates and the “nearest relative”; compulsory treatment; mentally disordered offenders; community powers; and the work of the mental health tribunal.
Thematic approach
This thematic approach distinguishes Professor Fennell’s book from its chief competitor: the veritable “bible” produced by Richard Jones since-Adam-was-a-lad, which is now in its thirteenth wrist-snapping edition. That book takes the Mental Health Act section-by-section and is sometimes less than nimble in linking different provisions or drawing on other statutes. This becomes more of an issue as legislation such as the Mental Capacity Act begins to make itself felt.
Here, the author’s approach is to
