A 27-year-old man with a mental illness spent nearly six months in Canberra's jail for minor offences because the ACT's mental health services could not accommodate him, a court has heard.
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Chief Magistrate Lorraine Walker has described the jail as a ''totally inappropriate location'' for Kaine Bradley Bender, while his legal guardian called the case an ''example of everything that is wrong'' with the ACT's mental health system.
The case is the latest to highlight the gap in the territory's health services for patients requiring secure mental health care.
The ACT government is yet to introduce special legislation or a planning instrument to bring forward the construction of a 25-bed secure mental health unit at Symonston, despite seeking unanimous support for the proposal in August last year, shortly after the first prisoner suicide at the Alexander Maconochie Centre.
The push to bypass planning laws to speed up development of the much-needed unit came after criticism from mental health advocates and criminal lawyers over a string of cases where people who should have been in secure care were left languishing in custody.
Chief Minister Katy Gallagher said in a statement on Tuesday that the forensic unit was progressing and applications for a head contractor for the project would close next month.
Ms Gallagher said she had sought advice from ACT Health on Mr Bender's case to ensure care was being provided. Mr Bender was released on bail on Tuesday after spending 163 days locked up for minor offences, including unlicensed driving, common assault and obstructing a public official.
The Florey man has an acquired brain injury and subsequent mental illness after being struck by a drunk driver when he was 11. He has an extensive criminal history for mostly minor crimes.
Late last year, the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal declared Mr Bender unfit and appointed his uncle, Paul McBow as his legal guardian to manage his affairs.
Mr McBow described his nephew's circumstances on Tuesday as ''a classic example of everything that's wrong with the ACT mental health system''. ''They need somewhere in between the jail and hospital,'' he said. ''You can't just throw a mental health patient out in the street and tell them to cope.''
Ms Walker, in releasing Mr Bender on bail, said the AMC was a ''totally inappropriate location for someone suffering his conditions''.
Defence lawyer Jacqueline Agius said in court: ''It is a sad reflection on our society that the best we can do for a young man with a mental illness is to lock him up in the AMC and
effectively punish him for being homeless.'' Outside court, Ms Agius said the ACT government had to stop using the jail as a stop-gap to fill the void for mental health care in the territory.
''We've got the crisis centre, the street and jail - they're the mental health options in the ACT,'' she said. ''We need another place for people like Kaine. It's like he's in the too-hard basket.''
The ACT opposition's mental health spokeswoman Giulia Jones said vulnerable patients were being continually let down over a facility ''which was promised to be open in 2011''.
Fairfax Media revealed last year that completion of the facility had been delayed until the middle of 2017.
The government wants to bring that date forward to the end of 2016. Ms Gallagher said planning and design work for the new service was progressing and directorates were ''working closely to ensure that the planning approvals do not delay the project''.
