THE man who first highlighted the deaths of four psychiatric patients at a North-East hospital questioned the lack of police involvement in the original inquiry last night.

Police are re-examining the circumstances surrounding the death of Jonathan Longstaff, who died in a fire at Darlington Memorial Hospital 26 years ago.

An independent inquiry was later launched by the regional health authority into Mr Longstaff's death, and that of three other patients.

This followed a fight led by Chris Binney, a former councillor and at that time, a member of Darlington Community Health Council.

Last night Mr Binney, who is expected to be interviewed by police officers, said: "With the circumstances at that time I would have thought the police would have been more involved.

"Unfortunately though, in those days hospitals tended to keep everything in-house."

He said that he was "100 per cent" behind the current police investigation.

"They should get to the bottom of this and take as long as they need to do so."

A verdict of accidental death was recorded in the death of Mr Longstaff on August 23, 1975, but relatives believe key questions went unanswered.

Today's police investigation was launched when the dead man's granddaughter contacted detectives expressing concern about aspects of the independent inquiry report.

Four patients, including Mr Longstaff, died within a month in the P1 psychiatric wing of the Darlington hospital.

The first of the deaths was that of Rosemary Gibson, 21, of Newton Aycliffe, who took a drugs overdose and died on July 28.

A few weeks later, Patricia Lupton, 22, of Darlington, drowned while in a bath.

George Charters, 21, also died when he stole a hospital laundry van, drove to a remote North Yorkshire spot and killed himself.

A spokesman for County Durham police said they would have attended at all the deaths.

He said: "It was established at the time that the cause of death in all four cases was not suspicious, so the police involvement would have been absolutely minimal.

"Just because we are looking again at this it should not be taken automatically as an indication that things were not as they should be.

"What we are trying to do is establish the facts and see if there is any further action to be taken."