The family of a seriously ill Sri Lankan asylum seeker being held indefinitely in the Villawood Detention Centre in Sydney is calling for his case to be reviewed as a matter of urgency.

The man is brain damaged and his behaviour has become psychotic, according to his lawyer.

But he has no prospect of release because Australia’s domestic security agency ASIO deemed him a security risk.

Prominent Sydney lawyer and refugee advocate, George Newhouse, from Shine Lawyers, said the asylum seeker, dubbed Mr P to protect his identity, had been abandoned by the NSW Ministry of Health.

“He needed assertive treatment in the immediate and long-term,” Mr Newhouse said. “He most definitely didn’t get assertive treatment and he most certainly didn’t get the psycho-social rehabilitation he needed.”

Mr Newhouse will take the case to the Supreme Court of NSW today, arguing that the body charged with protecting the rights of mentally ill people in NSW, the Mental Health Review Tribunal, should not have agreed to his involuntary treatment in Villawood.

Mr P is a Sri Lankan refugee who has a brain injury and schizophrenia, and has been experiencing delusions and disordered thoughts. His condition has recently worsened and he has been violent, defecated and urinated in his house.

Despite this, doctors with the NSW Ministry of Health in February applied for Mr P to be discharged from hospital and stated that he would not be admitted again in future. – ABC/BrisbaneTimes