Man set himself on fire outside Kensington Palace after being sacked for signing petition

Harry Readhead

Amin Abdullah set himself alight outside the palace last week (Picture: National News)

A man who set himself on fire and burned to death outside Kensington Palace did so because he was sacked for signing a petition in support of a colleague.
Amin Abdullah, 41, doused himself in petrol and set himself alight outside the palace in west London last week.

It emerges that Mr Abdullah had fallen into severe depression after he was fired from Charing Cross Hospital for signing a petition in support of an under-fire colleague.
‘The way they [the NHS trust] treated him was disgraceful,’ Mr Abdullah’s partner, Terry Skitmore.
Mr Abdullah was one of 17 people who signed the petition following a patient’s complaint about a nurse. He also wrote a letter in which denied his colleague was ‘lazy’ and ‘unfriendly’, as she was claimed to be.

Mr Abdullah’s partner questioned why he was allowed to leave hospital (Picture: PA)

He was dismissed for gross misconduct on 21 December, and was treated for depression and suicidal thoughts at St Charles Hospital in Ladbroke Grove while awaiting his appeal.
He was under close observation, but was nevertheless allowed to leave the hospital two days before his hearing. Less than four hours later, at 3am, his charred body was discovered outside Kensington Palace.
‘They let him out alone and he never came back. The next thing I know, he is dead,’ Mr Skitmore said.
‘One minute he’s under close observation, the next minute they let him out… I thought he was in safe hands.’
Amin was raised in an orphanage in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He moved to the UK in 2003 and became a British citizen.
He won The Hannah Evans Award for Excellence when he graduated with a nursing degree from Buckinghamshire New University.