CRETE, GREECE - John Hogan, the British man who killed his son by jumping with him from their hotel balcony in Greece in 2006, was acquitted of murder last week. According to current reports, he was being treated with psychiatric medication at the time of the incident. The man jumped from the 50 ft. balcony holding his two children, causing the death of his six-year old son and leaving himself and his young daughter badly injured.

Mental health watchdog Citizen's Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) has pointed to the medication as the root cause of the "crazed look" on Hogan's face before he jumped from the fourth floor of the Cretan hotel. Hogan's history of mental health is far from good - his father died of multiple sclerosis when Hogan was a child, causing him and his family extreme trauma. Three months after their father's death, Hogan's brother Steven, then 17, committed suicide. His other brother Paul burned down the family home in 2004, then leapt to his death from Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol.

Court reports show that Hogan was treated by psychiatrists before appearing in the courtroom, after being put in the care of psychiatrists and medical doctors following the incident, and as a result of his wife's reports indicating that he was a danger to himself and others.

While Hogan was in custody leading up to the trial, where he was acquitted of murder, he was treated for anxiety and depression. The judge described Hogan in the courtroom: "his speech slow and slurred, a result of his prescribed antidepressants."

During treatment prior to the hearing, Hogan reported hallucinating about his son, and attempted suicide four times. CCHR has studied the effects of antidepressant medication on both adults and children, and found a uniform increase in violent and suicidal thoughts among patients.

In The Lancet, the British medical journal, Dr. Miki Bloch reported on patients who became suicidal and homicidal during withdrawal from an antidepressant, with one man having thoughts of harming "his own children". But the effects of these drugs, whether during consumption or withdrawal, are old news.

In the United States in July 2005 the Food and Drug Administration issued a Public Health Advisory on the use of antidepressant drugs. The Advisory said, "Adults whose symptoms worsen while being treated with antidepressants, including an increase in suicidal thinking or behaviour, should be evaluated by their health care professional." Similar warnings have been issued since then, by other official bodies such as the NHS.

Hogan will not serve a sentence in Greece but was put under the control of psychiatrists. Defense lawyer Dimitris Xyritakis said of Hogan: "He is now a prisoner of doctors, not of police and judges."

Further information is available from CCHR UK by calling 01342 313 926, or through www.cchr.org.uk.

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights is an international psychiatric watchdog group co-founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and Dr. Thomas Szasz,, Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus, to investigate and expose psychiatric violations of human rights.

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