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Difficult behaviour

It was suggested in three consultations that some mentally ill clients can be difficult, and in some circumstances exhibit quite threatening behaviour, which can make it difficult for legal service providers to assist them.³² If a legal service provider does not feel physically safe with a client, they may not be able to provide them with legal assistance. For example:

Sometimes people can come in very angry, and be very difficult and alienating to deal with. [They] come in and make threats, “I am going to kill this person, I am going to do this”, and all sorts of things … so accessing the service can be a problem.³³

We had a particular client, who was coming into the office, and we had a couple of situations that were quite alarming and we really didn’t quite know what to do. Some staff wanted to call the police. Other staff were reluctant to call the police because this particular client was so frightened of being taken away.³⁴

A disability awareness trainer commented that training for legal services staff may be useful to overcome this barrier.³⁵