TVNZ Sunday
Sarah Preece speaks to TVNZ's Sunday programme about surviving an horrific sex attack by a mentally ill man.
A woman brutally attacked in her own home by a psychotic meat worker blames the Nelson Marlborough Nelson DHB for failing to care for him.
The man had checked himself into the Emergency Department and was diagnosed as being in a psychotic state.
But after failing to be seen by the mental health crisis team he left on foot and made and his way to the home of Sarah Preece, 49.
Braden Fastier/STUFF
Photos taken just after the attack show gaping head wounds, a punctured lip and lacerations to her hands.
Confronting her in the doorway of her study he told her: "My name is Jacob Jensen, I have an hour and a half to live and I'm going to rape you first".
Sarah Preece told TVNZ's Sunday programme how she feared for her life as he assaulted her over next 45 minutes.
He smashed her head into the kitchen table and struck her with a metal coffee pot before raping her.
"I became nothing. I became his piece of meat and there was nothing I could do."
TVNZ
Sarah Preece was attacked in her own home by mentally ill meat worker Jacob Jensen. She's waived her right to name suppression.
Photos taken just after the attack show gaping head wounds, a punctured lip and lacerations to her hands.
Almost two years later, she still suffers mental and physical injuries and is unable to work.
Preece applied to the High Court to have her automatic name suppression lifted, so she could speak openly about how she believes the DHB failed both Jensen and herself.
"I would not have been raped or bashed that night by Jacob Jensen if they had provided him with due and adequate care."
DHB medical records obtained by TVNZ's Sunday show Jensen waited at the hospital for two and a half hours to be treated by the mental health team. He then walked out without staff realising.
Preece said the DHB had been "completely and utterly uncooperative" in her requests for information to try to understand what led to the attack.
The hospital denied her a copy of its review of Jensen's care, citing his privacy.
She obtained it under the Official Information Act.
TVNZ
Preece was attacked in her own home.
"The review found that he had no risk factors. The staff had done everything that they could and there was nothing more that could have done.
"It's hard for me to believe that they could not have recognised that he had risk factors."
The DHB's own records show he'd been assessed as being at high risk of harm and/or in high distress.
He went on to attack Preece an hour after leaving the hospital.
"The review was and is a total cover up and white wash", said Preece.
The DHB told Sunday it acknowledged the terrible criminal assault against Preece but denies there was a cover up or whitewash.
It's made changes to its mental health staffing roster including moving the crisis team to the emergency department after hours "with the aim of enhancing the support available at busy times".
Jensen was found not guilty by reason of insanity for the brutal attack and remains detained as a "special patient" in a secure mental health unit.
* Watch the full story on Sunday, tonight on TVNZ1 at 7:30pm.
Sunday Star Times
