Several times a year a high-profile sectioning will draw forth pages of outrage from writers who apparently feel so done out of their pound of flesh that they have to be faded out shouting about Butlins-style facilities. Alas, this week the notion of Broadmoor as a haven staffed by cheery Whitecoats was dealt something of a blow by a report from the Commission for Health Improvement, which deemed the institution's Victorian wards "totally unfit for purpose", lacking in basic standards of dignity and cleanliness, and inappropriate for modern care.
Attempts to prevent female patients being sexually abused by male patients had effectively excluded women from activities and education, patients were not getting even the minimum fresh air requirement, and the wards were dark and dirty. Yes, it's fair to say that of all the pictures conjured up by the damning investigation, Ruth Madoc judging the knobbly knees contest in the Hawaiian Ballroom wasn't exactly up there.
And yet, unsurprisingly, not one word of this report has found its way into newspapers given to styling Broadmoor as a well-appointed country house hotel - ironic, given that the vision of hell painted by the investigation would perhaps offer the catharsis they seem to crave each time a criminal "escapes" the conventional prison system.
Ignored, too, were a spate of recent articles highlighting the forgotten patients - the majority of Broadmoor's 400 inmates who have committed much less serious crimes and in many cases no crime at all. This group has for years been studiously ignored by the shouty brigade.
The problems inherent in our still-fledgling grasp of mental illness are given not a word of coverage by these alleged experts on Broadmoor and fellow secure hospitals Ashford and Rampton. Instead, we read of landscaped gardens, sports facilities and - abomination! - bingo. Seemingly more offensive than the misdiagnosis and mistreatment of a young man that condemn him to a lifetime of limb-twitching confinement is the notion that Saturday-night dances are occasionally held, as though an event where you might get the chance to rumba with Beverley Allitt or Peter Sutcliffe was the social equivalent of Truman Capote's Black and White Ball.
That and the notion of a mixed-sex hospital, of course - perceived by many writers (clearly well informed about the level of chastity in same-sex prisons) as indicating that an atmosphere of free love prevails in a manner you'd never get in Holloway.
Last year, the fact that a hospital constructed in the 19th century was adding a new gym and visitor centre seemed a step too far for one Sun journalist. "Needless to say, it puts the local sports centre to shame," said an unnamed insider (in the unique diction unnamed insiders deploy when speaking to tabloid hacks), before lamenting that the investment was "wasted on these low-lifes".
Another great exclusive by the paper's John Kay, who - in a splendid irony - once killed his wife and spent time in a mental hospital before being welcomed back to his old job on the Sun. And still they say rehabilitation doesn't work!
Most depressing of all, perhaps, is that although the CHI report in part echoes the conclusion of a long line of similar studies before it (that patients should be dispersed to smaller units better suited to offer treatment), one wing of Broadmoor's detractors will doubtless spring to its defence. The plain fact is that for all their bleatings about gyms, it serves them best exactly as it is: a horribly outdated madhouse, letting down its inmates and thus society as a whole, but playing the part of straw man like a dream.
