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Mistrust of service providers

It was raised in several consultations that some people with a mental illness are reluctant to access or contact a legal service provider, either because they are mistrustful of them, or because they are frightened of divulging personal information.²⁵ Personal information required by legal services usually includes contact details and full name, but may also include other information about a person’s life, which may be relevant to the legal issue. This reluctance or fear about divulging personal information may mean that a legal service provider is unable to ascertain the client’s full circumstances and details, which may prevent them from adequately assisting the client. For example, one caseworker said:

And there are barriers in that we ask them many nosey parker questions. For the Legal Aid requirements, we are obliged to know who we are speaking to before we give legal advice, and for people with paranoia [this is a problem].²⁶

A solicitor from a CLC gave an example of how this fear may prevent people from getting the legal support they need:

I saw this woman who had come to see me about a neighbourhood dispute. I had never seen her before, and I started taking instructions and writing down what she was telling me, and then … I think I just called her by her name, or just quoted back what she said to me. And she said, “How do you know that? [Do] you have other information on me? [Do] you have records on me?” And I said, “No, it’s only just what you have told me now that I have written down.” And she said, “No you must be involved in this conspiracy against me.” And I said, “No I haven’t, you can have a look … I have just written down what you’ve told me.” And so I gave it to her, and she ripped it into pieces. We couldn’t continue the discussion … That just stopped her getting legal advice, because she was so paranoid.²⁷

A disability awareness trainer provided an example of how this type of mistrust can act as a barrier to accessing services. She commented that some people experiencing paranoia believe that government computer systems and legal service providers’ computer systems are linked to one overall monitoring system.²⁸ This may increase a client’s reluctance to divulge personal information:

They may have a broadened belief that everybody, and I encounter this all the time, that you are all connected up together, and you are connected up with the police, and anything I say to you, you are going to put that on your computer, and you are all in on this together.²⁹

This same stakeholder also argued that a fear of being recorded over the phone can prevent people with a mental illness from accessing legal services by phone. This trainer, who has experienced mental illness herself, gave an example of where her own fear of being bugged prevented her from using a telephone:

I could never make a phone call in years gone by. I might make two phone calls a year and I would get someone else to ring the phone and start talking, and then put it over to me. And it was just horrific, because my paranoia was so severe that I was absolutely convinced that I was bugged, and everywhere I went I was [watched], so it was very hard for me to access a service.³⁰

The national program manager from Multicultural Mental Health Australia (MMHA) thought that in addition to having a great fear of legal issues, refugees with a mental illness also have a great fear or mistrust of “authority”. This might act as one barrier (among others) to such refugees accessing legal assistance.³¹