Northern Territory prisoner sent to RDH mental health ward for monitoring until NT Government can come up with adequate ‘treatment plan’

A TERRITORY prisoner will spend eight weeks in a mental health ward for bureaucrats to monitor her behaviour and sort out a “treatment plan” — with a guarantee she won’t be forced to take medicine.

Royal Darwin Hospital (RDH) in Darwin's northern suburbs (Tiwi). Emergency Department sign.

A TERRITORY prisoner will spend eight weeks in a mental health ward for bureaucrats to monitor her behaviour and sort out a “treatment plan” — with a guarantee she won’t be forced to take medicine.

The NT Supreme Court heard the woman was scared of going to the Joan Ridley Unit at Royal Darwin Hospital, where she was reportedly “forced to have pharmacological treatment” last September.

Lawyer Greg Macdonald, for the NT Government, told the court that Health Department boss Len Notaras planned to seek permission for the woman to be given involuntary treatment “in the near future”.

Chief Justice Trevor Riley said this would breach the woman’s “understanding of the reason for her being in (Joan Ridley)”.

He made an order to prevent the “foreshadowed” application to the Mental Health Tribunal until the court received an interim report on the “longitudinal” assessment — based on observations of the woman — in about four weeks.

Defence lawyer Georgia McMaster said her client‘s visits with one of her sons at Holtze prison would stop while she was in the high security facility.

“They don’t allow children in the unit — even lawyers have to have alarms on them the entire time,” she said.

Correctional Services boss Ken Middlebrook and Mr Notaras were told to find a “suitable, secure alternative” to jail for the woman, who suffers a delusional disorder and has been in prison for two years.

Chief Justice Riley said the assessment in Joan Ridley Unit as a means of determining risk to the community “seems the most pragmatic way to bring the matter to a head”.

David Grace QC, appearing by video link, said his client had “taken umbrage” at two “unannounced visits” from her treating psychiatrist and the relationship had deteriorated.

Chief Justice Riley said it wasn’t a reflection on the doctor.

Mr Grace urged the Health Department to put someone else on the woman’s case and allow her to audio record interactions.

The woman was found not guilty by mental impairment after she shot her ex-husband and his mother and kidnapped her youngest son — believing he was being sexually assaulted — in rural Darwin.

She will be under supervision for 16 years.

The case will return to court in September.