The ACT's Public Advocate has renewed calls for a secure forensic mental health facility after a man acquitted of a violent crime because of mental impairment found himself back inside prison walls.
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But the ACT Government is still considering whether to push ahead with such a facility after a cost blow-out, new beds coming online in NSW and questions over the demand among ACT patients.
Public Advocate Anita Phillips used her annual report to call for a secure place to house mentally ill offenders and alleged offenders posing a danger to themselves or the community.
''We are constantly concerned by the increase in the number and complexity of forensic mental health clients with nowhere to go for treatment and secure containment as the ACT has no forensic facility, and plans for such have once again been put on hold,'' she wrote.
The advocate's office became involved on Friday in a closed ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal hearing over the fate of the man placed back in custody at the prison about eight weeks ago. The man, in his 30s, stood trial in the ACT Supreme Court earlier this year accused of intentionally inflicting grievous bodily harm after stabbing and slashing another man in 2007.
The jury ultimately found the man not guilty by way of mental impairment, making him subject to the jurisdiction of the tribunal.
But Ms Phillips said the man found himself back among the general population of the Alexander Maconochie Centre after mental health authorities were concerned his previous violent behaviour made him unsuitable for alternative lodgings.
''We have been pushing for so long to have this facility, and we were so hopeful that it was going to happen, and it now appears it's been put on the back-burner because of this lack of resources,'' Ms Phillips said.
She also raised concerns about a mental health patient recently assessed as suitable for treatment at the Brian Hennessy Rehabilitation Centre but who, because of a lack of beds, also wound up behind bars.
Depending on the needs of individual patients and the availability of beds, mentally ill people caught in the justice system can be treated at Canberra Hospital's psychiatric services unit, the Brian Hennessey Centre or in the community.
High-risk patients can also be transferred to facilities in NSW, with new beds opening up at secure facilities in Sydney and Orange in the state's central west.
The ACT Government planned to build its own 15-bed secure facility at the site of the old Quamby youth detention centre, but moves were put on hold earlier this year after the project costs tripled to about $30million.
As a result, the Government asked NSW Health Infrastructure Services to undertake a peer review, which was received by the Health Directorate recently.
A spokeswoman for Chief Minister Katy Gallagher, who was on leave last week, said Ms Gallagher had not yet had the chance to examine the report.
But at an estimates hearing in May, the Chief Minister said the cost blow-out - partly driven by the slope at the Quamby site - and the new availability of beds in NSW forced a rethink.
''I think we do need certainty, and if we are going to build, we need to get on and build,'' she said at the time.
Mental Health Community Coalition executive director Brooke McKail also raised concerns the prison was becoming an alternative mental health facility.
''We understand that people either are ending up in the prison or in the crisis support unit in the prison which is not intended to be a long term accommodation option for people,'' she said.
''Alternatively if they're not given a [prison] sentence they may end up in the psychiatric services unit which also doesn't have the security needed for somebody who might be a risk to themselves or to other people.''