THE BACKLASH over the apparent mass murderer Andreas Lubitz has been extraordinary.

Far from condemning the ‘heinous act’ his ex-girlfriend reportedly alleges he was planning, critics have instead attacked the media for asking pertinent questions about the fitness to fly of an air pilot who was being treated for depression and who reportedly woke up in the night screaming ‘we’re going down’.

This kind of mental affliction wouldn’t matter so much if he was a working at a burger bar or as a journalist, for instance. Because people who do those jobs do not have responsibility for hundreds of ordinary people’s safety every day of the week.

So questioning whether pilots who are ill in this way should be flying is not, as some deluded folk appear to think, ‘stigmatising depression’ or a slur on all those who are depressed.

It isn’t intimating that everyone who is depressed is a potential mass murderer because patently, they are not.

But it IS - and has never been - more relevant to ask about the mindset of people in jobs like train or bus driving, or co-piloting jumbo jets full of innocent travellers.

Yet you’d think an open season had been declared on people who have or have had depression when all the media has done is ask the question everyone wants answered.

This kind of collective offence-taking by the mental health industry comes across as an attempt to manipulate journalists into not saying anything they don’t agree with about anyone and I’ve had enough of it.

Having suffered with clinical depression on and off since childhood, and continuing to have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder - one of the manifestations of which is a phobia about flying - I’m more than qualified to speak out about this.

But even if I wasn’t, it would STILL be my right to ask what can be done to ensure that any profoundly depressed people who may be planning to take their own life are temporarily removed from jobs where they may be able to make hundreds of innocent people suffer for their actions.

Like I said last week, most poor people who do contemplate suicide take great pains to ensure that no one knows they are going to do it and they desperately need all the help we can give them before it’s too late.

But preventing people like Andreas Lubitz being able to do what he did should now be a major priority for all airlines, bus companies and railway operators.

After all, the mental health industry must surely concede that Lubitz’s actions have caused even more serious depression, grief and post-traumatic stress - to the families of the dead. Dealing firmly with people like him isn’t cruel or horrible. It’s common sense.

  • THE GOVERNMENT has warned that if you blow your pension pot as you are now entitled to do, you cannot expect the state to step in.

Hmmm. If I was a betting woman I’d say go ahead. After all, the state pays out to you if you have never worked or intended to work, never been an official citizen of this country, and if you are foreign and fall ill on holiday here, the state pays out for that, too.

As attempts to curtail this free-for-all have met with mighty and hostile opposition, who’d bet against the Lamborghini-rich, cash-poor pensioners being topped up by the Nanny State, using the savings made by not spending on the thrifty and the prudent?

  • HOPING to cash in on the meteoric popularity of Poldark, a Sunday newspaper gets actor Aidan Turner to pose with a ripped-open black jacket revealing THAT chest.

Wrong. It’s not the look of Poldark while he’s scything away topless in his field that’s got the female population going. It’s knowing that his character is kind, brave, decent and manly. As well as looking gorgeous, of course. Hope that’s made it clear for all the irritating men who are still asking Poldark-related questions preceded by the words ‘But what’s the point of...’

  • HELEN Mirren doesn’t like the word sexy, when applied to herself, she says: “I think it’s totally over-used and limiting.” As Helen is an Oscar-winning, Shakespearian Dame who is feted wherever she goes, I’m not sure how or when or by whom she’s ever been limited.

At 69 there are far worse things you can be described as. Like ‘old’.

  • CANADA has started seal clubbing again. Just thought I’d mention it, if you were looking for holiday destinations to avoid like the plague this year.

 

  • RICHARD Gatiss, 25, is the thug whose assault on disabled Newcastle pensioner Alan Barnes resulted in an outpouring of public cash and sympathy from well-wishers across the world.

Gatiss has been sentenced to four years in prison for his cowardly attack and according to his brief remains under threat from other prisoners. See, it’s not all bad news! Happy Easter!