The plight of a woman left caring for her ex who doesn't know he has a brain injury

The health secretary committed to reforming the Mental Capacity Act after ITV News highlighted multiple cases of vulnerable adults not getting assessments, ITV News' Political Correspondent Romilly Weeks' reports, produced by Senior Political Producer Elisa Menendez

When Sally Agarwal's ex-partner suffered a catastrophic brain injury, leaving him with a five-minute memory, she thought the system would step in and help.

But four years on, and amid her own cancer diagnosis, she is still providing round-the-clock care at her home for Mark, who is unaware that he has been injured.

The mother-of-three believes if he'd have been given a mental capacity assessment - which judges whether a person is capable of making decisions safely for themselves - Mark would have received the help they both desperately need.

"I hoped that our systems to protect the most vulnerable people in our society would work," Sally told ITV News.

"What I've seen - and heard about in other cases - actually is that far from working to protect the person, they seem to be used to ignore the person, to make them kind of disappear."

Sally is one of many people ITV News has spoken to over the past year who have highlighted the ways the Mental Capacity Act is failing their vulnerable loved ones.

It comes after the tireless campaigning of Fiona Laskaris, whose autistic son Christopher was murdered in his own home after authorities failed to give him a mental capacity assessment.

Their speaking out has prompted Health Secretary Wes Streeting to today give his strongest backing yet that the government will reform the Act.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting told ITV News' Romilly Weeks he is committed to reforming the Mental Capacity Act

Streeting told ITV News: "It is a really serious situation because too often we've seen - and you have been showing us - people are experiencing injury.

"The extent of harm isn't fully known, it's not assessed at the time, and therefore people aren't receiving the help that they're entitled to - the support that they need. And they're not being treated with the dignity and the respect that they're owed too.

"So we are looking at this actively, we're determined to take action. That will include a review of, and ultimately reform of, the Mental Capacity Act."

In January 2022, Mark suffered a serious seizure while staying at Sally and her husband Alan's home in Torquay, Devon. Their lives changed overnight, with Sally and Alan becoming full-time carers for Mark.

One night, Sally heard banging coming from Mark's room and went in to find him lying on his bed where he "looked quite dead". Alan performed CPR on Mark as they waited for an ambulance to arrive, which took him to intensive care.

There, he remained intubated for the majority of his six-week stay, before being discharged from the hospital to their home nearby.

The injury left Mark with a severe memory impairment and as a result he now needs help remembering to eat, to take his life-saving medication, and round-the-clock care.

"His memory from before the incident in 2022 is pretty much intact but since then, he can only retain about five to 10 minutes worth of memory and then it's gone," Sally said.

"So that means he can't remember to do an awful lot of the things that we take for granted. He can't remember what date it is, he can't remember to take his medications."

Every time Sally tells him of his injury, it is as though he is hearing it for the first time.

"It's a horrible shock every time," she added, "he can't remember that he can't remember."

When Mark was discharged from hospital to their home, Sally assumed "the system would kick in" and that he would be supported to return to his home in Camden, London.

But no mental capacity assessment was offered to Mark, meaning he never received the support and care he - and Sally's family - desperately need.

Sally recalled: "Mark had said on the phone to a social worker from his home authority that he didn't need any care, he didn't require any services, and so the case was closed by his home authority... Because he doesn't know he has a brain injury."

If Mark had returned home without any help, he'd be in danger of further brain injury or death, says Sally.

"Because he's so vulnerable, he could have been exploited by other people, he could have been made homeless and I could not just dump him.

"My husband and I both agreed that we just can't do that. We wouldn't even do it to a dog."

Things worsened when Sally was diagnosed with cancer in 2023. But she had no time to recuperate. The night she got home from hospital, Mark suffered another serious seizure.

"There was no formal care in place for Mark, even though it was requested by clinicians. Nothing was done," Sally says.

Sally - who was later diagnosed with PTSD - fears if she isn't there for Mark, that he will have no one, adding: "If I break, the whole thing breaks."

How close has she been to breaking? "Pretty close," she says. "I had to pretend that I didn't have cancer. It's quite a hard thing to do, actually."

If an assessment to judge whether Mark is capable of making decisions about his own safety was carried out, Sally believes everything would have unfolded differently.

"It would have made a massive difference if I'd have been able to understand that he needed a [mental capacity] assessment and then ask for it," she says.

"The original problem - which was Mark saying, 'I don't need any help', and that being taken at face value - couldn't have happened.

"The assessment would have found that he didn't have capacity. And so that could never have been used as a reason for closing his case."

In October 2025, Camden Council finally offered a package of care but Mark's GP has deemed it clinically unsafe and it was conducted without a capacity assessment.

Sally is now going to court to attempt to get Camden to deliver the support her family needs. While she waits for that judgement, her life remains on hold.

"It has been tough. But I really hope that the law gets changed so that other people don't have to do this in the future.

"It's such a terrible waste of people's lives and actually in the end, government resources, because denying these people what they need is not saving money, it's just creating bigger problems further down the line."

What has Camden Council said?

A Camden Council spokesperson said: “In Camden we always aim to work closely with both people who require social care, and their families. We are confident that suitable support has been regularly offered to meet Mr Manning’s needs at the appropriate time, however, we are of course ready to help with any concerns around this and to discuss this support.

“We do not believe that the Mental Capacity Act has been a barrier in this instance, but Camden Council is here to engage with the government’s review of the Act to ensure this works best for our residents.”

What is the Mental Capacity Act and how could the law change?

The Mental Capacity Act was introduced in 2005 in a bid to minimise the number of vulnerable adults being detained unreasonably and indefinitely, and to give them more autonomy over their own care.

It states that everyone is presumed to have the capacity to make decisions about their own safety and wellbeing unless it's proved that they don't.

'Losing a child is the worst thing that can happen to anyone, but I think a preventable death is the very worst,' Fiona Laskaris previously told ITV News in 2025, following the murder of her autistic son Christopher

However, research has found that mental capacity assessments are either not carried out enough or are not carried out effectively - in particular on autistic people, adults with learning disabilities or those with severe mental health conditions, such as bipolar and schizophrenia.

Their insistence that they can cope is often taken at face value without considering their past history and loved ones’ concerns. This means that they are left without the support they need.

ITV News has spent the last year investigating this issue following the murder of 24-year-old Christopher Laskaris, an autistic man killed in his own home in 2016, after he was not given a mental capacity assessment that would have led to him having greater support.

His mother Fiona Laskaris - backed by Dorking and Horley Lib Dem MP Chris Coghlan - has been working with the government on "Christopher's Law", which would mean authorities would have a duty to carry out such assessments.

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