Latest news with #Sargant
Edinburgh Live
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Edinburgh Live
Celebrity Traitors' Celia Imrie suffered ‘horrific' treatment in doctor's ‘sleep room'
Our community members are treated to special offers, promotions and adverts from us and our partners. You can check out at any time. More info Former patients of psychiatrist William Sargant have revealed the horrifying treatment they received at a renowned London hospital. Author Jon Stock has collected stories from several of Sargant's victims, including well-known actress and star of 'Celebrity Traitors', Celia Imrie. Speaking to the Mirror, Jon said that a majority of the people subjected to Sargant's cruel "Sleep Room" therapies were women and young girls. The troubling revelations include Sargant's preference for lobotomising unhappily-married women, rather than allowing them to go through with divorce. Sargant justified his disturbing stance by saying: "A depressed woman, for instance, may owe her illness to a psychopathic husband who cannot change and will not accept treatment. Separation might be the answer, but... we have seen patients enabled by a [lobotomy] to return to the difficult environment and cope with it in a way which had hitherto been impossible." (Image: Hilary Stock) The unethical doctor went as far as humiliating his female patients by having them parade nearly-nude before audiences of medical students. Amongst those mistreated by Sargant is acclaimed actress Celia Imrie, whose credits include hits like 'Bridget Jones's Diary' and 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel'. She is set to appear again on television screens in the BBC's 'Celebrity Traitors'. Imrie confided to Jon about developing an eating disorder during her youth after being labelled "too big" to realise her ambition of becoming a ballet dancer. (Image: GL Weekend) She detailed her extreme efforts to lose weight, stating: "I worked out every means possible to dispose of food, determined to get 'small' enough to be a dancer, and I was soon little more than a carcass with skin." Her experience under the care of Sargant was disturbing, as she recounted: "The side effects were startling. My hands shook uncontrollably for most of the day, and I'd wake up to find clumps of my hair on the pillow." Celia described the harrowing ordeal: "But the worst consequence was that everything I saw was in double vision. When Sargant came into the room, there were two of him. It was horrific and terrifying." She further explained the treatment's impact: "Even simple tasks such as picking up a glass of water became impossible. I was injected with insulin every day too. Sargant was a big believer in fattening up his patients to get them well and you soon put on weight with insulin. "I think I had what was called 'sub-coma shock treatment'– you weren't given enough insulin to induce a hypoglycaemic coma, but it was enough to make you drowsy, weak, sweaty and hungry." She added: "I will never know for sure if I was given electric shocks during my stay," due to missing medical records, a situation Celia blames on Sargant: "Some years back, I tried to find my hospital records, to see the details of my treatment. Unfortunately, Sargant seems to have taken away a lot of his patients' records, including mine, when he retired from the NHS in 1972." (Image: Alamy Stock Photo) She concluded with lingering doubts, expressing: "Either that, or they were destroyed. I can't remember ECT happening to me, but I can remember it happening to others." Sargant's methods were brutal and included electroshock therapy. "I vividly recall every sight, sound and smell," Celia remembered. "The huge rubber plug jammed between her teeth; the strange almost silent cry, like a sigh of pain, she made as her tormented body shuddered and jerked; the scent of burning hair and flesh. It was a terrible thing for a fourteen-year-old to witness." (Image: Universal Images Group via Getty Images) Women were placed in Sargant's care for the most trivial of reasons. Jon told the Mirror that patient Mary Thornton was admitted to The Sleep Room after her parents suspected she was having a romance with an "inappropriate" boy. She told Jon that she also only has patchy memories of her treatment: "One is of the electrodes being attached to the side of my head. I remember the complete, utter terror because I didn't even know who I was." Jon says this was a common reason for young women's hospitalisation: "In the mid 1960s, for example, a wealthy businessman contacted Sargant, explaining that his daughter had fallen in love with an "unsuitable" local man in Europe and wanted to marry him." Sargant was tasked with curing the young girl's love-struck "madness." He explains: "A photo later emerged of Sargant, the father and a heavily sedated daughter standing at the door of the aeroplane that had returned her to the UK." A former student at the hospital told Jon: "Basically, Sargant brought this attractive young woman back at the end of a needle." Rumours link Sargant to the CIA's infamous MK Ultra "mind control" programme, with speculation that the US spy agency may have funded some of his work. Jon states: " The minutes of St Thomas' Research Advisory Committee meeting reveal that in September 1963, Sargant announced that an anonymous donor would fund the salary of a research registrar (£80,000 a year in today's money) for two years. Sargant refused to reveal the donor's identity." (Image: Chris Floyd) Jon confirms that Sargant did have ties to the intelligence community, stating: "Sargant did regular work for MI5 – in 1967, for example, he was called in to assess the mental health of Vladimir Tkachenko, a suspected Russian defector." However, Jon admits that proving Sargant's association with the CIA is one of the most challenging aspects of the story. One former serviceman, Eric Gow, who participated in drug trials under the impression he was helping to cure the common cold, reported being given massive doses of LSD. Jon says that Gow claims to recall seeing Sargant overseeing some of these experiments at the MOD's chemical and biological research facility at Porton Down. The Sleep Room: A Very British Medical Scandal by Jon Stock is published by the Bridge Street Press (£25).
Wales Online
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Wales Online
Celebrity Traitors star opens up on ‘coma shock treatment' at hands of cruel doctor
Celebrity Traitors star opens up on 'coma shock treatment' at hands of cruel doctor Celia Imrie, who is set to appear in the BBC's upcoming Celebrity Traitors series, was subjected to a series of cruel treatments at the hands of psychiatrist William Sargant - including being put into a 'sub-coma' Celia Imrie was one of many young women entrusted to the care of psychiatrist William Sargant (Image: Karwai Tang, WireImagevia Getty Images ) Former patients of a secure psychiatric ward at a prominent London hospital have come forward to share the traumatic experiences they endured under the care of psychiatrist William Sargant, who subjected them to inhumane and unethical treatments. For his new book, The Sleep Room, author Jon Stock spoke with several of Sargant's victims, including actress Celia Imrie, known for her roles in films such as Bridget Jones's Diary and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, as well as her upcoming appearance in the BBC's Celebrity Traitors. A disturbing pattern emerged, revealing that the majority of Sargant's patients in the notorious "Sleep Room" were women and young girls. In some cases, Sargant even recommended lobotomies as a solution for unhappy wives, rather than suggesting divorce or separation. His twisted rationale was that this drastic procedure would enable them to cope with their difficult circumstances. Jon Stock spoke to several of Sargant's former patients (Image: Hilary Stock ) Sargant's blatant disregard for his female patients' dignity and well-being was exemplified by his practice of parading them, semi-naked, in front of rooms filled with medical students. Celia Imrie, who was also under Sargant's care, told Jon how she had developed an eating disorder as a young girl, after being told she was "too big" to pursue her dream of becoming a ballet dancer. She recalled: "I worked out every means possible to dispose of food, determined to get 'small' enough to be a dancer, and I was soon little more than a carcass with skin." Article continues below She found herself under the care of Sargant. Celia shared: "The side effects were startling. My hands shook uncontrollably for most of the day, and I'd wake up to find clumps of my hair on the pillow." Celia Imrie says that all records of her treatment have mysteriously vanished (Image: GL Weekend ) Celia said that one of the most disturbing side-effects of Sargant's treatment was that everything she saw was in double vision: "When Sargant came into the room, there were two of him. It was horrific and terrifying. "Even simple tasks such as picking up a glass of water became impossible. I was injected with insulin every day too. Sargant was a big believer in fattening up his patients to get them well and you soon put on weight with insulin. I think I had what was called 'sub-coma shock treatment'– you weren't given enough insulin to induce a hypoglycaemic coma, but it was enough to make you drowsy, weak, sweaty and hungry. "I will never know for sure if I was given electric shocks during my stay," Celia added. "Some years back, I tried to find my hospital records, to see the details of my treatment. Unfortunately, Sargant seems to have taken away a lot of his patients' records, including mine, when he retired from the NHS in 1972. "Either that, or they were destroyed. I can't remember ECT happening to me, but I can remember it happening to others." Celie is one of the stars in line for the BBC's Celebrity Traitors Sargant's brutal methods included frequent electroshock treatments. Celia recounted the harrowing experience, "I vividly recall every sight, sound and smell," describing the distressing scene she witnessed at just 14-years-old. Women were entrusted to Sargant for the most trivial of reasons. Jon revealed to the Mirror a case where patient Mary Thornton was placed in The Sleep Room because her parents disapproved of her relationship with an "unsuitable" boy. She shared with Jon her fragmented memories: "One is of the electrodes being attached to the side of my head. I remember the complete, utter terror because I didn't even know who I was." Many of the records of Sargant's work at the Royal Waterloo have been lost (Image: Universal Images Group via Getty Images ) Jon noted that this was often the reason for young women being admitted to the hospital: "In the mid 1960s, for example, a wealthy businessman contacted Sargant, explaining that his daughter had fallen in love with an 'unsuitable' local man in Europe and wanted to marry him." Sargant was tasked with treating the girl's infatuation, which was seen as insanity. He detailed, "A photo later emerged of Sargant, the father and a heavily sedated daughter standing at the door of the aeroplane that had returned her to the UK." A former student at the hospital told Jon about the incident: "Basically, Sargant brought this attractive young woman back at the end of a needle." Sargant himself underwent psychiatric treatment earlier in his life (Image: Alamy Stock Photo ) It has even been claimed that Sargant may have had ties to the CIA's infamous MK Ultra "mind control" programme. According to Jon, there are whispers that the US spy agency may have provided funding for some of Sargant's work. Jon explains: "The minutes of St Thomas' Research Advisory Committee meeting reveal that in September 1963, Sargant announced that an anonymous donor would fund the salary of a research registrar (£80,000 a year in today's money) for two years. Sargant refused to reveal the donor's identity." Jon confirms that Sargant did have links to the intelligence community, stating: "Sargant did regular work for MI5 – in 1967, for example, he was called in to assess the mental health of Vladimir Tkachenko, a suspected Russian defector." Article continues below He also admits that solid proof of Sargant's association with the CIA is hard to find. However, he notes that Eric Gow, a former serviceman who participated in drug trials under the guise of helping to cure the common cold, was administered large doses of LSD. Jon believes that Gow may have seen Sargant overseeing some of these experiments at the MOD's chemical and biological research facility at Porton Down. The Sleep Room: A Very British Medical Scandal by Jon Stock is published by the Bridge Street Press (£25).
Daily Mirror
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Celebrity Traitors star survived 'horrors' under doc who 'electrocuted' patients
A British doctor who presided over inhuman experiments to cure patients of 'illnesses' from eating disorders to unsuitable love affairs may also have been involved with the CIA's mind-control experiments says author Jon Stock Former inmates of a secure psychiatric ward at a central London hospital have revealed the harrowing story of psychiatrist William Sargant's brutally unethical treatments. Author Jon Stock met with a number of Sargant's patients, including award-winning actress and Celebrity Traitors star Celia Imrie. A disturbing majority of Sargant's patients in the so-called 'Sleep Room' were women and young girls, Jon Stock told the Mirror. More than once Sargant recommended a lobotomy, instead of divorce or separation, for unhappy wives. The sick doctor once explained: 'A depressed woman, for instance, may owe her illness to a psychopathic husband who cannot change and will not accept treatment. Separation might be the answer, but... we have seen patients enabled by a [lobotomy] to return to the difficult environment and cope with it in a way which had hitherto been impossible.' Sargant's callous disregard for the women under his care extended to parading them, nearly-naked in front of rooms full of medical students. Celia Imrie was another victim of Sargant. The actress has starred in dozens of British movies from Bridget Jones's Diary to The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and is soon to be back on our screens in the BBC's Celebrity Traitors. She told Jon how she developed an eating disorder as a young girl, after being told she was 'too big' to pursue her dream of becoming a ballet dancer. She explained: 'I worked out every means possible to dispose of food, determined to get 'small' enough to be a dancer, and I was soon little more than a carcass with skin.' She soon found herself in the hands of Sargant. Celia said: 'The side effects were startling. My hands shook uncontrollably for most of the day, and I'd wake up to find clumps of my hair on the pillow. 'But the worst consequence was that everything I saw was in double vision. When Sargant came into the room, there were two of him. It was horrific and terrifying. 'Even simple tasks such as picking up a glass of water became impossible. I was injected with insulin every day too. Sargant was a big believer in fattening up his patients to get them well and you soon put on weight with insulin. I think I had what was called 'sub-coma shock treatment'– you weren't given enough insulin to induce a hypoglycaemic coma, but it was enough to make you drowsy, weak, sweaty and hungry. 'I will never know for sure if I was given electric shocks during my stay," Celia added. "Some years back, I tried to find my hospital records, to see the details of my treatment. Unfortunately, Sargant seems to have taken away a lot of his patients' records, including mine, when he retired from the NHS in 1972. 'Either that, or they were destroyed. I can't remember ECT happening to me, but I can remember it happening to others.' Sargant's barbaric methods included regular electroshock treatments. 'I vividly recall every sight, sound and smell,' Celia recalled. 'The huge rubber plug jammed between her teeth; the strange almost silent cry, like a sigh of pain, she made as her tormented body shuddered and jerked; the scent of burning hair and flesh. It was a terrible thing for a fourteen-year-old to witness.' Women were put in Sargant's hands for the flimsiest of reasons. Jon told the Mirror that patient Mary Thornton was admitted to The Sleep Room after her parents suspected that her romance with an 'unsuitable' boy. She told Jon that she also only has patchy memories of her treatment: 'One is of the electrodes being attached to the side of my head. I remember the complete, utter terror because I didn't even know who I was.' Jon says this was a common cause of young women's hospitalisation: 'In the mid 1960s, for example, a wealthy businessman contacted Sargant, explaining that his daughter had fallen in love with an 'unsuitable' local man in Europe and wanted to marry him.' Sargant was employed to help cure the young girl's love-struck 'madness.' He explains: 'A photo later emerged of Sargant, the father and a heavily sedated daughter standing at the door of the aeroplane that had returned her to the UK.' One former student at the hospital told Jon: 'Basically, Sargant brought this attractive young woman back at the end of a needle.' According to some sources, Sargant is also associated with the CIA 's bizarre 'mind control' program MK Ultra. Jon says that there are rumours that the US spy agency helped fund Som of Sargant's work. He explains: ' The minutes of St Thomas' Research Advisory Committee meeting reveal that in September 1963, Sargant announced that an anonymous donor would fund the salary of a research registrar (£80,000 a year in today's money) for two years. Sargant refused to reveal the donor's identity.' He certainly had some involvement with the intelligence community, Jon says: 'Sargant did regular work for MI5 – in 1967, for example, he was called in to assess the mental health of Vladimir Tkachenko, a suspected Russian defector.' Admitting that Sargant's association with the CIA is one of the hardest parts of the story to prove. Jon says that Eric Gow, a former serviceman who had volunteered to undergo drug trials – under the impression that he was helping cure the common cold – was given massive doses of LSD. He says that he feels sure he recalls seeing Sargant overseeing some of this bizarre experiments at the MOD 's chemical and biological research facility at Porton Down. The Sleep Room: A Very British Medical Scandal by Jon Stock is published by the Bridge Street Press (£25).
Daily Mail
03-05-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
The Sleep Room by Jon Stock: The top actress who was sedated and given electric shock treatment to cure anorexia
The Sleep Room: A Very British Medical Scandal by Jon Stock (Bridge Street Press £25, 432pp) An airless hospital dormitory in perpetual semi-darkness, day and night. A musty smell of sweaty slumber and human breath. Occasional moans of bewilderment. Eight young women, some as young as 14, lie in a state of drug-induced sleep for weeks at a time, 20 hours out of every 24. They're known as the 'Sleeping Beauties'. Every six hours, they're chivvied awake by nurses and led stumbling to the lavatory. Without their knowledge or consent, they're given frequent bouts of electro-convulsive therapy, causing them to jerk and twitch, rubber plugs jammed between their teeth. This is not science fiction. It really happened, to hundreds of patients (most of them girls and young women) in the 1960s and early 1970s, in the Sleep Room in Ward Five of the Royal Waterloo Hospital. The theory was that 'deep sleep therapy', or 'continuous narcosis', combined with ECT, would 'upset patterns of behaviour and re-programme troubled minds'. The doctor who ran this dystopian hellscape was William Sargant, the tall, striking physician in charge of psychological medicine at St Thomas' Hospital, of which the Royal Waterloo was an annexe. He believed that mental ill-health was a physical condition, which needed to be treated as such. He had no time for Freudian talking therapy, or what he called 'sofa merchants'. His control over the sleeping patients was total. With the 'Sleeping Beauties' safely in their sedated state they wouldn't be in a position to protest. Who would send a daughter to such a place? The answer was middle-class mothers at their wits' end when their daughters refused to eat, or get rid of an 'unsuitable' boyfriend; or who was stubbornly recalcitrant, wayward or depressed. Sargant promised parents that his treatment would be like a re-set of their daughters' brains. Sometimes it worked for a short time, but Sargant had no interest in long-term results. Often, there was a relapse. 'Sargant still features in my nightmares,' says the actress Celia Imrie, one of six former Sleep Room patients who provide their raw testimonies in Jon Stock's horrifying exposé of Sargant's Sleep Room. Imrie was sent to Ward Five by her mother in 1966, aged just 14. She was suffering from anorexia that had started when, after applying for a place at the Royal Ballet School, she had discovered a rejection letter on her mother's desk, saying she was 'too big ever to become a dancer'. She was so heavily drugged with the antipsychotic Largactil (which so dulled the senses that it was known as 'liquid cosh' or 'the chemical straitjacket') that she had double vision and couldn't stop shaking. 'I was injected with insulin every day, too,' she says. 'I think I had what was called 'sub-coma shock treatment' – you weren't given enough insulin to induce a hypoglycaemic coma, but it was enough to make you drowsy, weak, sweaty and hungry.' Once, Sargant took her with him to a hospital lecture theatre, to be his exhibit. 'I had to take my clothes off so students could see how thin I was.' She has tried to find her hospital records, but they have 'vanished' or been destroyed. So she's not sure whether she had ECT, though she guesses she did. She was powerless under the treatment of the 58-year-old Sargant, with his piercing eyes 'like washed black pebbles'. He was treated like a god, breezing in through the swing doors, worshipped and obeyed by everyone. She realised the way to get out was to eat. 'My recovery had nothing to do with him or his barbaric treatments.' 'I didn't wake up for six weeks,' recalls Linda Keith, whose parents checked her in to Ward Five in 1969 when she was a 23-year-old Vogue model. 'My parents always referred to me as being 'ill' rather than the more accurate description of me: a pleasure-seeking, music-obsessed drug addict. What they wanted was a tame, house-trained lapdog.' What they got, after submitting their daughter to Sargant's treatment, was a woman 'without a mind. I'd been rendered completely helpless.' During the narcosis, Linda was subjected to 50 sessions of ECT. The result was that she could no longer choose anything and needed help with the simplest tasks. 'I wasn't happy or unhappy. I wasn't there.' She had also forgotten how to read. After being discharged, she went to see Sargant at 23 Harley Street, and asked him when she might read again. He said he didn't know. Then, she recalls, 'he came on to me. He tried to hug me and kiss me on the mouth. I ducked and hit him so he went over onto the ottoman pouffe.' Before being sent to Ward Five, Linda had an affair with Keith Richards (who would later write the song Ruby Tuesday about her) but left him for Jimi Hendrix. A few years after Sargant had stopped treating her, she bumped into him in Bond Street and called him 'a monster' to his face. To read this disturbing book is a stifling experience. Stock powerfully evokes the eerily subdued atmosphere of the Sleep Room and brings out the sinister creepiness and the arrogance of Sargant. He discovers that Sargant himself had been admitted to Hanwell Asylum in 1934 for depression. It was here that he became convinced that 'insanity' would one day be perceived as a series of physically treatable disorders. He wanted to save people from being incarcerated in asylums for months or years (that was an admirable aim) and he believed that a short, sharp, 12-week shock would do the trick. All very well in theory – but as this book shows, the results could be disastrous. Another patient, 15-year-old 'Sara', suffered terrible memory loss, a kind of 'severe Alzheimer's', and the antipsychotic drugs left her with a permanent Parkinsonian tremor. Stock also suggests that Sargant shared his research with, or might even have been partly funded by, Porton Down, the MI5, MI6 and the CIA. In the 1950s, Porton Down conducted LSD experiments on young corporals, who took part in exchange for a bit of money. The aim was to disorientate people so that they 'forgot how to lie'. It's all very murky, and Stock doesn't quite nail Sargant's involvement. By far the most memorable aspect of this disturbing book is the unforgettable image of those drugged, sleeping girls incarcerated in the top floor room overlooking Waterloo station.
The Guardian
09-04-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
The Sleep Room by Jon Stock review – shocking tales from 1960s psychiatry
You'd think a sleep room would be cosy, but the one on Ward 5 of the Royal Waterloo hospital in London, back in the 1960s, was dark and airless, a twilight zone where up to six patients – almost always young women – would lie comatose on grey mattresses for weeks, even months on end. They had come in with schizophrenia, anorexia or, in a few cases, a youthful waywardness that their parents hoped could be cured. For William Sargant, the psychiatrist in charge, the cure lay not only in prolonged narcosis but insulin shock therapy, ECT and, if need be, lobotomy. Afterwards, the patients had no memory of what had been done to them. The Sargant method was to wipe their minds clean. Celia Imrie, later a famous actor, was admitted to Ward 5 in 1966, when she was 14. To her it was 'like being in a prison camp' and her recovery 'owed nothing' to the 'truly horrifying' Sargant and his 'barbaric treatments'. Sara (not her real name) was a year older, just 15, and remembers the 'hideous cocktail of drugs' that kept her in a zombified state. Linda Keith, celebrated for her relationship with Jimi Hendrix and at the time, in her own words, 'a pleasure-seeking, music obsessed drug addict', had about 50 sessions of ECT on Ward 5: they left her 'hugely mentally incapacitated' and unable to read. She also recalls Sargant coming on to her in his private practice. How persistent a sexual predator he was is unclear, but at least one woman registered a complaint with the General Medical Council, and there's nothing remotely redemptive in Jon Stock's lacerating account. A tall, burly 'rugger man' who hushed up the mental breakdown he had in his 20s, Sargant was cavalierly mechanistic in his approach, dismissing therapy and Freudian 'soft merchants' in his zeal for the liquid cosh and other even tougher interventions; in one of his books he recommended lobotomy, instead of divorce, for unhappy wives. He loved publicity and was occasionally a talking head on the BBC, once appearing on the Third Programme with the singer PJ Proby. He had the respect of some colleagues – including doctor and future foreign secretary David Owen – and rose to the top of his profession, with a private practice alongside NHS work in London and at the Belmont Hospital in Sutton. His 1957 book Battle for the Mind, ghosted by Robert Graves, was a bestseller, and he could boast many eminent and well-to-do clients – aristocrats, prima ballerinas, overseas royals. Gifts and donations poured in. While working at the Priory shortly before his retirement, a 'gorgeous Arabian princess' offered him a Rolls-Royce and sent five along, in different colours, for him to choose from. At his best, he was part of a movement to destigmatise psychiatric units and banish any lingering association with lunatic asylums. To more sceptical colleagues, though, he was 'Bill the Brain Slicer': arrogant, bombastic and 'soullessly one-sided'. RD Laing saw his approach as a 'regression to barbarism'; Anthony Clare was a critic, too. The six female patients whose personal testimonies form chapters in Stock's book thought him a monster. So did nurses allocated to the sleep room, whose job was to medicate the patients (usually with chlorpromazine) four times a day, and who hated the spooky ambience and 'dark alchemy of drugs and electricity'; it was, one said, 'the sort of thing you'd expect in Hitler's time'. Patient consent didn't become enshrined until the Mental Health Act of 1983 and the women were repeatedly subject to procedures to which they hadn't agreed. The side- and after-effects were dire (tremors, chronic fatigue, massive memory loss, etc) but to Sargant, Stock claims, these were 'an acceptable trade-off'. He was, Stock adds, 'possessed of a furor therapeuticus – a rage to heal – that was more in his own interest than his patients'. The sleep room regime is more than enough to convict Sargant of dubious practice, but halfway through the book Stock veers off to examine his possible involvement with MI5, MI6 and the CIA's MKUltra programme in mind control. Sargant learned a lot about brainwashing during the second world war, while treating traumatised soldiers, and his expertise found favour with the intelligence services. He also worked in the US for a time, and had close ties with a fellow sleep-room practitioner there, Donald Ewen Cameron, who was funded by the CIA. Stock speculates on what Sargant 'could' or 'might' have worked on, including LSD trials at Porton Down with MI6. But in the absence of incriminating documents (many of which remain classified) the evidence is inconclusive and, compared with the sleep room chapters, the material looks tangential, however heatedly researched. To say that 'he was unquestionably the sort of psychiatrist whom Porton Down – and MI6 – might have turned to' doesn't really nail him as an opportunistic cold war stooge. And the sensationalist chapter heading 'She told me that Sargant killed … a patient', based on a secondhand, uncorroborated story, feels a bit cheap. Of the thousands of patients Sargant treated, at least five seem to have died during narcosis. Meanwhile, he exaggerated recovery rates and didn't count relapses. And the six women who speak out in this book are haunted by what he got up to without their knowledge. On the website of the Royal College of Physicians he's called 'the most important figure in postwar psychiatry … He gave his patients hope.' Those women, along with many former nurses and doctors, would beg to disagree. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion The Sleep Room: A Very British Medical Scandal by Jon Stock is published by The Bridge Street Press (£20). To support the Guardian and the Observer buy a copy at Delivery charges may apply.
