A psychiatrist who treated Jayden Bennell for two years said he would have been “alarmed” and “greatly concerned” by the 20-year-old Indigenous man’s behaviour in the months before his death, telling an inquest it showed a heightened risk of suicide.
Bennell died of an alleged suicide at Casuarina maximum security prison in Western Australia on 6 March 2013, seven months after his last one-on-one appointment with a psychiatrist.
The last psychiatrist to see him was Mark Hall, who was then a consultant psychiatrist at Acacia and Hakea prisons.
He told an inquest at the Perth magistrate’s court on Wednesday that he saw Bennell 15 times, approximately once every six weeks, between 2 September 2010, and 6 August 2012. His responsibility for Bennell’s psychiatric care ceased in November 2012 when Bennell was transferred to Casuarina prison, he told coroner Sarah Linton.
In his time treating Bennell, Hall said, the Bibbulmun Noongar man had only talked about killing himself once, in his first appointment.
“He was not in favour of suicide,” Hall said, noting earlier that “the impact it would have on his family was a deterrent to him”.
“It was something that he felt he ought not or should not do, it was something that he considered as a mechanism of escape from life,” he said.
However, Hall said there were two things about Bennell’s reported behaviour in the three months prior to his death that, had he been made aware of them at the time, would have caused him great concern.
The first was a vision that Bennell reportedly had after he and his cellmate, Craig Scortaioli, stole and inhaled some solvent in the prison. Scortaioli told the inquest on Monday that Bennell said he had seen himself hanging.
He was later found hanged in an unlocked cleaning storage room opposite his cell.
Asked by Steven Castan, counsel for Bennell’s mother Maxine, for his response to that vision, Hall said he would have “been very alarmed” and “probably taken an over-cautious response” by triggering the prison’s suicide watch protocol.
Scortaioli had also told the court Bennell had become obsessed with one song that had a line saying “all things must end”, which he played repeatedly for three months and requested played at his funeral.
Hall said that he would have been “very concerned” by that information.
He said Bennell should have seen a psychiatrist at Casuarina, regardless of whether he requested to see one, and that appointment should have been triggered four weeks into his four-month-long refusal to take his medication.
Adam Brett, a psychiatrist who was asked to provide an expert opinion on the case, said the mental health system in WA prisons should be completely overhauled to ensure people like Bennell did not fall through the cracks.
Brett said that prisons were “just managing the tip of the iceberg” and that more holistic care, particularly care involving Indigenous mental health workers, was required.
“One in four people at reception (in WA prisons) have previously tried to kill themselves and (of those) one in six had previously tried to kill themselves in the month before they were admitted,” he said.
“So the acuity in prisons is very high and if someone is not displaying symptoms they would just be dropped off the system for someone more acute.”
Asked by David Leigh, counsel for the state’s department of corrective services, whether he was suggesting a complete overhaul of the system, Brett said: “Yes.”
Brett said while in his opinion Bennell’s care under Hall had been “excellent”, his care at Casuarina was only “adequate”.
The inquest continues.
- In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. Hotlines in other countries can be found here
