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House blow may have lit the fuseArifa Akbar10/08/2001 Forensic scientist Dr Ian Stephen says the behaviour of someone like James Forster cannot be foreseen and is often triggered by one central event. The event in Forster's case may well have been his failure to buy a house in Manfield which he particularly wanted. Dr Stephen, a former advisor on the television series, Cracker, says this kind of personality disorder is often manifested in someone who is incredibly self-contained and who likes to be in control. "This type of person tends to be very focused about what they want. A trigger, such as not getting the house they wanted, is all that is sometimes needed for everything to fall apart," says Dr Stephen, from Edinburgh, who has worked with court offenders for 30 years. "It can take just something like that to upset the balance, for anger to be focused and projected on to others," he adds. "He wanted this house and that was where he was going to be. He would see it as his place. When someone took that place, he became wrapped up with hate and rage towards people." He says Forster's thinking could have certain similarities to the delusional and obsessive thinking of paranoid schizophrenics. "There's a fine line between those who are very controlled and those who are paranoid and delusional." He says someone like Forster would not have easily related to people and trusted them. More worringly, he may have delighted in his covert reign of terror and felt pleasure from the punishment he was inflicting on neighbours. Having retired from university lecturing, Forster may have been lost without a status and felt he had no focus in his life before he embarked on his poison pen campaign. Dr Stephen says it is difficult to assess how far the destructive behaviour could have accelerated if he had not been found out. "We can never say what he could have done. Some people said they would never have thought Thomas Hamilton could have done what he did in Dunblane. I'm not comparing the two cases, I'm just saying you can never tell how far a problem will accelerate, how far a man will up-the-ante and what he will find his satisfaction from doing next." Dr Stephen says Forster's 12-year reign of torment is likely to bring villagers closer together, though they will be suspicious of outsiders for a certain time. "A tiny village like Manfield is based on trust and, though it may not get to the core of the village, it will raise insecurity." • Back
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