Solicitors acting for dozens of British people who were given lysergide (LSD) in psychiatric hospitals in the late 1950s and early 1960s have won legal aid to investigate a possible claim for compensation. The law firm Alexander Harris, in Sale, Cheshire, has 56 clients who were given the hallucinogenic drug. Mr Edward Myers, a partner, took on the cases after being approached by Mr Ken Purchase, Labour MP for Wolverhampton North East, who has compiled a dossier of nearly 80 such cases. “The more I looked into this, the more I was concerned about what had happened to people,” Mr Purchase said.

Psychiatrists gave LSD to an estimated 4500 patients in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s, mainly those with symptoms of depression. The firm says that many were admitted …