A homeless man has attempted suicide yesterday, after it’s believed that he was banned from sleeping in one of Swindon town centre’s car parks by the criminal courts.
Swindon Homeless Volunteers discovered his unconscious body while on an outreach walk on Sunday night, and say that if they hadn’t have found him when they did, he would have died.
The news comes just a few weeks after Dan Greenwood passed away in the tent he was living in near Swindon College. The group say his tent was removed from its original spot where he was receiving the regular support he needed.
Louise Morecome, founder of Swindon Homeless Volunteers, said: “No longer will we be quiet and allow this to continue. We’d helped Dan Greeneood continuously, he was in a tent by my house behind a church, meaning I could check on him and help him. However, the council tipped his tent and belongings and Dan got hold of another tent and didn’t tell anyone where he was.
“We were in town few days ago one of our homeless friends was massively upset, as he’d just left court. He had been banned from sleeping in a town centre car park. They court’s reason was that they had photos of people taking drugs there. Our homeless friend was not in these photos, and I have a copy of all photos and all the court documents.
“On last night’s walk, he was found unconscious, he’d tried to end his own life because he’d been banned wrongly from the only place he knew home, the car park. He couldn’t mentally live with the way our system is failing him as a human being, he was an hour from his death.
“Three of us left the walk, and stayed by his side. He was unresponsive the whole time but we held his hand and kept talking to him even though he couldn’t open his eyes. This has to stop. We almost lost another guy last night, because of lies and tent-tipping.”
Louise from Swindon Homeless Volunteers will feature on BBC Wiltshire Radio from 7am on Tuesday, talking about the council’s tent-tipping.
