“Some patients were admitted under the old Mental Deficiency Acts, so-called “moral defectives”. A multitude of sins; silly, petty crimes now, but they would have been certified under the MDA, subject to a 5-year review.
And every 5 years, if the Medical Superintendent thought that they needed another 5 years, and more often than not they did, they got another 5 years. And they were there indefinitely, once they had been certified.”
— A senior member of staff (#2) at Middlefield, speaking in 1995
“John went into Middlefield when he was 3. He’d come from a children’s home, where he had been placed by his mother... We found out later that she was an unmarried parent who wasn’t able to keep the child so she put him in this home, and he was moved from there into Middlefield when he was 3.
There was no family involved, we traced his family eventually but they didn’t want to know him, they didn’t want anything to do with him.”