Guardian June 13, 2001

by Julian Borger

Is there anybody can tell me who I am?

He can speak French and read Latin. He is probably British. But apart from that, 'Philip Staufen' knows nothing about himself. Since being mugged in Toronto two years ago, his past has been a blank. And no one has come forward to identify him. Julian Borger reports.

"I, a person suffering from amnesia, in the City of Vancouver," begins one of the more unusual affidavits to come before the Canadian courts in recent years. It was a statement of a man who may or may not be 26, who may or may not be British, and who may or may not be named Philip Staufen. All he knows, in the words of the affidavit, is the following: "I am a white male, Caucasian, about five feet, nine inches. I weigh 150lbs. I have no visible marks on my body. I have no memory of any events prior to waking up in the hospital in November of 1999."

The man stumbled into Toronto general hospital with a bloody face, a damaged nose, a British accent with perhaps a hint of Yorkshire in it, and very little else. No wallet, no identification and no idea who he was. His hair was dyed blond and his clothes were from brands available anywhere in the world, with no identifying labels. When the hospital authorities insisted he provide a date of birth and name, any name, before they could treat him, he came up with the first name that flashed across his mind, Philip Staufen, and the first date he could think of, June 7 1975.

After almost two years of searching the English-speaking world for traces of the man's true identity, Detective Stephen Bone now believes the name may be a red herring. "I've had his fingerprints and photographs sent all over the world. We had a publicity campaign in Yorkshire, and we've had his picture sent to Australia, where I'm told it was published. The results have all been negative."

A year and a half later, Staufen is no closer to knowing who he is and where he comes from. He has found out a few things about himself; that he can speak French and Italian, and read Latin. Bone took him to an academic linguist, who declared him probably British, with a "public school accent" and possible remnants of a northern brogue, most likely Yorkshire. But beyond that is a great black abyss.

The Staufen case has become one of the most baffling amnesia cases in living memory. Where did he acquire his language skills and his mastery of Latin? Why does there seem to be no one looking for him? How did he end up on the streets of Toronto, and how did he lose his memory? And is he telling the truth? Bone has no doubts. "There is no evidence that he is deceiving people. No one would put themselves through what he has gone through," the detective says. "He prides himself on being able to look after himself. He doesn't want people to give him things."

Bone is fairly sure he was punched hard in the face, knocked unconscious, and probably robbed. The policeman asked the British consulate for help, but officials there said they could not get involved because there was no proof Staufen was British. The name is German, but inquiries there also drew a blank.

Without an identity, Staufen has been unable to work. He was looked after by generous Toronto households for a few months, then had himself registered as a welfare recipient. But he has grown increasingly frustrated with his situation, and has grown restless in the search for answers, moving to Montreal and then to Vancouver. "My actual situation has left me prey to too many abuses and humiliations. I have found myself having to live on the streets or with violent and vulgar people," Staufen said in his February court statement.

"I have been left in a situation of half-abandonment for 15 months now, having to live on $525 [£250] a month and having as alternatives only suicide or becoming a criminal. The fact that I have no sympathy either for the former or the latter leaves me with really no choice at all - a situation which is unbearable."

According to Manuel Azevedo, a Vancouver lawyer who has taken up his case, Staufen "rents a room, I guess you'd call it a bedsitting room on the East Side. He's getting fairly paranoid and depressed, which is fairly typical for his condition. He hasn't been out of his room for the past 10 days."

In his statement, Staufen said he spends much of his time in a public library reading sonnets in Latin. He has nothing else to do.

Azevedo has petitioned the attorney-general of British Columbia, asking for Staufen to be issued a Canadian passport to enable him to travel abroad in pursuit of his identity. The problem is that Staufen has none of the usual scraps of information necessary to establish a legal identity, so Azevedo has asked the authorities to grant a "legal fiction": a confected life story, complete with place of birth and parents' names, which his client could then use as a stepping stone to finding out who he is. The Vancouver Sun newspaper has taken up his case, calling on the authorities to make an exemption in the normal rules on compassionate grounds, but the case is still pending.

Staufen's condition is a rarity. Blows to the head often cause brain damage and "global amnesia", but according to James Kelly, medical director of the Chicago Neurological Institute, the condition does not last very long, and it involves the loss of the capacity to function normally from day to day.

But Staufen is able to discuss his case coherently with his lawyers, and he remembers who they are from one day to the next. From the sound of his case, Kelly suggests he may be suffering from psychogenic amnesia: blacking out memory as a result of stress.

"It can be triggered by bodily injury, when the recollection of that injury can be catastrophically stressful," he says. He gives the example of a woman he treated recently whose sexual abuse as a child had one day triggered a "fugue state" in which she lost her bearings and travelled a great distance, from Indianapolis to Kansas City to Denver, in a state of amnesia. Kelly suggests Staufen may be undergoing a similar "fugue state". He recommends hypnosis as a means of rescuing buried memories.

Manuel Azevedo's daughter, Natalie, who has been trying to help Staufen in Vancouver, says the possibility of hypnosis has been mentioned, but that Staufen wasn't receptive.

But in the absence of a medical or psychiatric breakthrough, the man known as Staufen seems doomed to a life in limbo, a person without an identity in a desolate landscape of the mind, bereft of memories and the sense of self which enables the rest of us to deal with the outside world.

"My life is senseless," he complained in his testimony. "I can hardly sleep at all and I refuse to contemplate becoming addicted to drugs (legal or not). As I cannot work and provide for my material and spiritual needs, or leave the country, I consider myself a prisoner; therefore, I am kindly asking to be set free."

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), June 17, 2001

Answers

Oddly, no picture accompanied this article (as best I can remember)

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), June 17, 2001.

"My life is senseless," he complained in his testimony. "I can hardly sleep at all and I refuse to contemplate becoming addicted to drugs (legal or not). As I cannot work and provide for my material and spiritual needs, or leave the country, I consider myself a prisoner; therefore, I am kindly asking to be set free."

Get a life, weenie.

-- (the Whiners@SN.Live), June 17, 2001.

Probably a UFO abductee.

-- Mu-Fon (-@area51.con), June 17, 2001.

Picture of him

-- Firemouse (idon'tknowhim@do.you), June 17, 2001.

Hmmmm, John Lennon lives!

-- (nemesis@awol.com), June 17, 2001.