Report to look into Dixon's psychiatric care 

Source: ONE NewsAntonie Dixon

The head of New Zealand's mental health service says questions will have to be answered about Antonie Dixon's psychiatric care.

The Ministry of Health is asking for a report into how Dixon, who was found dead in his cell, was assessed and treated in jail.

Both Dixon's lawyer and the Howard League say he should have been in a high security mental institution not prison.

Director of Mental Health David Chaplow says the court's decision to jail Dixon was the right one at the time. He says Dixon was in jail because he was found to be sane at the time of his crimes.

He says prisoners are often identified as needing help with mental illness.

Chaplow says the report into Dixon's treatment will be expected to explain how he was being assessed and how decisions about him were reached.

Fragile mental state

Dixon's lawyer Barry Hart said on Thursday that his client had refused to take his medication and had been beaten up several times by inmates.

He said his client had previously indicated suicidal tendencies and at times had been put in restraints to stop him hurting himself.

Hart believes Dixon should have been put into a psychiatric unit, not a prison cell.

"Clearly the prison authorities let us down and the mental authorities let everyone down because clearly he was left in a room where he could injure himself."

He says there had been a "bit of a buildup" in Dixon's behaviour in recent weeks and he had asked the psychiatrist who had appeared for the defence in Dixon's trials to assess him.

But when he tried to do so he was told a psychiatrist from Auckland's Mason Clinic, who was already treating Dixon, would visit him, which he did. The Mason Clinic psychiatrist had told Hart in a later conversation that his client was very unwell, but was under control.

Howard League president Peter Williams QC says Dixon should have been in a high-security mental institution.

He says it was completely wrong and inappropriate for him to be in an ordinary prison and the situation put prison staff and other inmates in danger.

Williams says prisons aren't designed, and officers aren't trained, to deal with the mentally ill.