Karen’s Story

Over several years, LawRight staff built trust and worked together to achieve a rare Forensic Order revocation. Karen is in her 70s and experiences high levels of anxiety about any changes in her life. Many years ago, during a relapse of her schizophrenia, she committed a minor property crime, and reacted to police who sought to detain her – due to her illness, she believed that they were trying to kidnap her. This resulted in assault and weapons charges and ultimately a Forensic Order.

Karen has lived a very quiet life since and cooperated with her treating team but it has been challenging to move her off the Order as she is too anxious to attend Tribunal hearings and does not want to talk to staff for longer than 10 minutes at a time. However, when Karen realized that a Forensic Order will stop her getting her preferred support and aged care help as she gets older, she knew she could trust us and decided to try for a revocation for the first time in years.

This result is particularly significant because the clinical evidence, client presentation and resistance from the Attorney-General have remained similar for some years. LawRight’s advocacy and legal argument ultimately made the difference.

Karen's Story

Karen’s Story