A CONSULTANT psychiatrist at Fazakerley Hospital was yesterday accused of discharging a schizophrenic who went on to murder two women.

Paranoid schizophrenic Mark Corner killed and dismembered two prostitutes in July, 2003, after being released from hospital, a General Medical Council hearing was told yesterday.

The 30-year-old took Hanane Parry, 19, and Pauline Stephen, 25, back to his Liverpool flat, killed them, then cut up their bodies.

Body parts were later discovered in bin bags at the back entrance to the Everton property, in his freezer, and dumped at Stanley Park. Dr Eric Birchall, his consultant psychiatrist, is accused of misconduct in relation to his treatment of Corner and another male psychiatric patient who committed suicide.

The General Medical Council (GMC) hearing in Manchester heard that, in the year prior to the killings, Corner twice brandished a knife at female neighbours because he believed they were talking about him.

On the first occasion, in August, 2002, his concerned father and younger brother restrained him and called police after he had threatened to kill a female neighbour with a kitchen knife.

Craig Sephton, QC, GMC counsel, said Corner spent three weeks in Fazakerley Hospital after this incident and was diagnosed as schizophrenic.

Mr Sephton referred to Corner as Patient A and once by his initials, MC.

He said: “By September 11, 2002, Dr Birchall considered Patient A could be discharged and classed as an informal patient.”

Just 10 days after being discharged, he was readmitted to A&E after taking an overdose of 36 paracetamol.

He confessed to visiting the home of a female neighbour armed with a knife “to check no-one was talking about him” and said he had been drinking heavily and not taking prescribed anti-psychotic medication.

Dr Birchall discharged him to the care of the crisis team after making an out-patient appointment, Mr Sephton said. He added that Corner’s father was concerned about his son being discharged.

Corner failed to attend four subsequent out-patient appointments, and seven months later he was readmitted to hospital overnight after taking Ecstasy.

Three months later, he murdered the two women.

Mr Sephton said: “In July, 2003, Patient A was arrested and charged with the murder of two women. He was convicted of their manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

“No part of my case is that Dr Birchall is responsible in any way for these murders.”

Mr Sephton said Corner had “a morbid fascination with females who had died after being severely mutilated”.

He asked the GMC fitness to practise panel to consider his suggestion that Dr Birchall failed to devise an adequate care plan; failed to act after learning Corner was not taking his medication and was acting dangerously; and failed to review the situation when he did not attend appointments.

Dr Venicia Salvary encountered Corner when she was training to be a GP. She said: “His family thought he was mad.”

The hearing was told Corner was a heavy cannabis user and smoked up to one ounce of the drug a week. He also used steroids when he was training as a bodybuilder and took cocaine and LSD.

Mr Sephton said he had an unhappy childhood and considered himself a loner. He described his parents as picky and was afraid to laugh in front of his father.

In 1995, Corner took an overdose and later absconded from psychiatric care.

Corner, a former security guard, pleaded guilty at Liverpool Crown Court to the manslaughter of two women on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

He was sectioned under the Mental Health Act and is detained indefinitely at Ashworth Hospital.