Persons acquitted of crimes on the basis of insanity are to be placed in a secure unit at the Mid-Atlantic Wellness Institute (MWI).

And those with severe mental health issues could be sent to an overseas institution for care. A high support rehabilitation unit on the cards for the Devonshire hospital was detailed earlier this month as part of Bermuda's mental health strategy.

The strategy intends to increase community-based care and seek improvements in services. It will also offer more options for autistic children and geriatrics.

The new facility will provide care for those acquitted on the basis of insanity, help make patients fit to stand trial and treat them so they can be managed by staff.

It will be supervised by nursing staff and security officers.

Announcement of the facility follows the death of Lorenzo Robinson in July 2008. The 28-year-old paranoid schizophrenic committed suicide in Westgate.

He'd battled for six years to secure the specialist treatment experts said he needed. He was incarcerated having been found insane, after he stabbed an American tourist in the back with a six-inch blade on Front Street in 2002.

A spokesman for the Bermuda Hospitals Board (BHB) said the unit will house both sexes and has been approved by Government. "We believe that this kind of unit will improve the delivery of mental health services for this user group and better prepare them for a road to recovery," she said.

"The level of security is absolutely appropriate for the type of people who will be using this service.

"Service users with active long-term paranoid symptoms with a conviction for a severe crime, such as murder, would need to receive intensive rehabilitation overseas.

"We are working on an agreement with an institution based in the UK to provide places for people with mental health issues who require a higher level of security than can be provided on-Island.

"Given the small numbers who require this level of security, it is not economically viable to provide such a service in Bermuda at this time."

In Mr. Robinson's trial, the finding of insanity was based on the evidence of top UK psychiatrist Frank Kelly. He recommended that Mr. Robinson be confined in a "forensic psychiatric unit" in a hospital for the criminally insane.

He noted that Bermuda did not have such unit, so recommended he be sent overseas for treatment.

Mr. Robinson was not sent overseas and no unit was built.

Instead, he remained at Westgate until March 2008 when he appealed to Chief Justice Richard Ground.

The judge backed his plea for overseas help, branding the conditions at Westgate as unsuitable for his needs and at times disturbing.

MWI did not have a unit that would have been suitable for Mr. Robinson to live.

Mr. Robinson's trial lawyer Elizabeth Christopher said yesterday: "I am very disappointed that it's being described as a unit for those declared insane by the courts. There's a wide range of people who have mental health issues who should be treated in a hospital and are [instead] being sent to prison.

"They need to create a unit. Mr. Robinson really exemplified the need to address the unit. Hopefully what they are going to do is create a unit for those who have mental health issues and [those] who are being dealt with in the criminal justice system can have those issues addressed in the proper environment."