Two nights ago, on the front of the local paper, was the face of a man I once knew.

A man I knew when he was a boy and I was a girl, twenty years ago when we used to play in one anothers' gardens, making potions out of mud and catching ghosts.

A man who, just about 18 months ago, was shot dead by police at the side of the road 15 miles from where we both grew up.

The police shot this man because he was behaving in a 'threatening manner' with a weapon (a sword). Everyone who knew him was entirely disbelieving that this could have happened. He had no pre-existing mental health problem, and the post mortem confirmed that no drugs or alcohol were in his body at the time. He was a kind, sweet, gentle child who became a kind, sweet, gentle man. It is believed that he may have been suffering from a virally-induced psychosis brought on as a result of an illness he picked up whilst travelling.

Now he's dead.

My mother said at the time: "You hear of these things happening, and although you are shocked by them, you don't really feel it. Then it happens to someone you know, the child of someone you know, and you realise, if it can happen to them, it can happen to any one of us. It was their child, but it could have been mine."