A “HUMAN timebomb” who has infected 12 people with tuberculosis while refusing treatment has prompted calls for an urgent change in the law to allow people with infectious diseases to be treated by force.

The man attacked nurses, hospital staff and security guards after the courts ordered his detention to prevent the highly contagious illness from spreading further.

Health chiefs have decided that it is safer to set him free, even though TB kills 350 people a year in Britain. They fear that if he does start medication but fails to complete the course, he may develop the more dangerous drug-resistant form of the disease. That would make him even more of a menace to society.

In some American states, courts could order such a man to be held in prison and treated against his will. On the Continent, his welfare benefits could be withdrawn.

The British Government announced in January 2002 that it intended to review the law, but it has not yet completed consultations. Last year it asked the Health Protection Agency to consider how the existing law could be used more effectively and what changes were still needed. The agency is expected to make recommendations by this summer.

Medical authorities cannot identify the man to advise people to stay away because patients have a right to privacy. The man, a suspected psychopath, is white, in his forties and lives in Leicestershire. He could be prosecuted for assault causing grievous bodily harm if victims complained to police that he had given them the disease after refusing to be cured, but they have no way of knowing that he has forsaken treatment.

Peter Ormerod, a former TB adviser to the Department of Health, said: “You can compulsorily detain people in hospital if they are infectious under the Public Health Act 1984. But there is no provision in law where you can give compulsory treatment.

“In the past, this man has been compulsorily admitted [to] hospital. He has assaulted security guards, nursing and other staff. It is thought safer that he is out of hospital because of [the risk of] assaulting other people. It is thought too dangerous to send people round to try to administer treatment. At least if he has no treatment, people he infects can be treated. If he develops drug-resistance, that would make treatment harder.

“This is fairly unusual . . . most people are compliant with treatment and are cured. Just a small minority of people are difficult to treat because of their lifestyle or personality.”

Treatment for TB consists of a six-month course of tablets and 97 per cent of patients suffer no side-effects. TB infections have been rising by 3 per cent a year. There are now 7,000 annual infections.

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