Shannon:

You can’t keep saying this. You can’t keep pretending this makes sense-that any of this makes sense. I’m tired of being calm, of pretending it’s fine, that I can trust the process. Because I can’t. And I won’t.

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Today, he admitted to killing my brother. He stood up in a room full of people, in a court where justice is supposed to be upheld, where truth is supposed to matter. He stood up and said he stabbed him. He admitted it. Twice, straight in his chest…and then he left him to die. Alone, scared, on a cold floor in the dark. And the court said: yes, he did it. Yes, it was him. Was it wrong? Yes. Was it illegal? Yes. And that should have been the end of it.

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But it wasn’t. He won’t be going to prison. He won’t be going anywhere that a criminal like that should go. Where someone as emotionally empty and dangerous should go.

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Instead, he’ll go to a hospital. “Not guilty by reason of insanity.” A “defect of reason” caused by a “disease of the mind.” Not forever. Not even for long, probably. Five years? Fifteen years? My brother is dead. Forever. He had decades stolen from him. Decades.

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(Pause)

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I get it, mental illness is real. I’m not saying for a second that it isn’t. No one’s saying that. But what’s being done about it? What’s slipping through the cracks? This man had a record. There were warnings. There were signs. He’d been in and out of care constantly, thrown out of one and into another. There were calls made. Reports filed. But nothing stuck. Nothing stayed. Now what?

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(Pause)

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We’re told not to blame the man. Don’t blame the system. Don’t blame the NHS. Don’t blame the police. Don’t blame the government, because they’re all tired, they’re all overworked, they’re all stressed. Blame the illness. But that illness was known. It was seen. And no one acted. No one cared. Who cared about my brother? Who cared about my mum, who now wakes up every morning to an empty house and wonders what she did wrong?

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(Beat)

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I’m not asking for revenge. I’m asking for recognition. What happened was preventable. Daniel mattered. A life was lost, and it wasn’t bad luck. It wasn’t the world working in mysterious ways. It was negligence. It was silence. It was turning a blind eye because it was too much effort, too expensive. It was a system that still doesn’t know how to care about the people it claims to serve.

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(Pause, softer)

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All we want is for someone to be held responsible. But instead, we’re told to understand. To accept. To move on with our lives.

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(Pause)

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I won’t. And I don’t think you should either.

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Justice matters. Justice for Daniel matters. It matters to me more than anything in the world.

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And what you’ve done today… it isn’t justice.