Milan and Kym

As a child, Milan used to hear voices. ‘I just thought, you know, it’s a kid thing,’ said his mum Kym. But it wasn’t something he grew out of.

Milan started misbehaving when he was about 10. There were a lot of kids in the family and Kym had her hands full.

‘I was just so busy, you know, as a mother. And he was just – like, you could be – everything would be fine, and then next minute he’d just go on a crazy fit out of nowhere, and he’d be gone, and you’d be just left standing there going, “What just happened?”’

At high school Milan’s behaviour deteriorated and he started taking illicit drugs. ‘And I think it just spiralled out of control,’ Kym said.

In his early 20s Milan went to prison for the first time. He’s been incarcerated many times since then, spending more time in prison than out.

People told Kym his behaviour was because of the drugs. When she called the mental health helpline it was the first question they asked: ‘Is he on the drugs?’

But eventually Kym realised his behaviour was not related to drug use.

Kym recently gained access to Milan’s prison records and found that in the mid-2010s he had reported hearing voices, bizarre dreams and paranoia. The doctor wrote in the notes that Milan should be reassessed if the issues continued in order to rule out psychotic disorder.

But this didn’t happen.

As Milan’s behaviour became increasingly erratic – including self-harm, assaults and eventually a suicide attempt – Kym raised concerns with prison staff.

‘My son needs to get a psychiatrist to diagnose him,’ she told them. ‘I reckon he’s got schizophrenia.’

They told her they didn’t have the funding.

Kym contacted mental health services, but a mental health nurse told her there was ‘nothing wrong’ with Milan, that ‘he’s only got behavioural problems’.

‘But you know, the thing is, what they’ve done is, they’ve put a label on him, seeing him as he’s aggressive and drug-seeking,’ said Kym. ‘He’s not on drugs when he’s in prison.’

It was only when Milan seriously attacked someone that the prison finally had him properly assessed. He was diagnosed as schizophrenic.

Milan, now in his early 30s, is on medication and in regular contact with a mental health service.

‘He’s not doing any of the episodes or carrying on … He’s a lot calmer. He’s not the same person that he used to be,’ Kym said.

She is angry that he wasn’t diagnosed sooner, both for his sake and that of the person he assaulted.

Milan had been arrested for relatively minor offences, so by the time his matters came to court he had already served any prison sentence on remand. But being on remand, he couldn’t access services available to sentenced prisoners.

‘They're in prison once. They're in prison twice. The third time … when there’s someone like [Milan], it is the norm. He would do stuff to get put back into jail because he just couldn’t deal with anything. And it’s like, “Hang on. There’s something wrong with this person. This is not normal behaviour.”’

Kym wants courts and prisons to do better with repeat offenders like Milan.

‘I say my son is a biproduct of the system, a revolving door, and he’s fallen through the cracks.’