A man has been sentenced to three years of mandatory treatment at the Mid-Atlantic Wellness Institute.

Acting Puisne Judge Craig Attridge told the Supreme Court on Friday that Meshach Crichton, 22, was deemed of having a low risk of reoffending – but still needed psychiatric help.

He sentenced Crichton to a hospital order that would hold him at MWI and further restricted his release for three years.

Any conditions for his release, such as routine check-ups at MWI or abstaining from drugs and alcohol, will be determined by a psychiatrist upon this assessment.

Elizabeth Christopher, for the defence, called the sentence a “baby step” towards further integrating mental health treatment into the justice system.

She added: “I’m happy to see the integration of mental health considerations into the criminal justice system – and hopefully going forward there will be more.”

Crichton pleaded guilty on February 1 – two days before his trial date – to causing actual bodily harm to Kevin Davis.

The charge was at first listed as wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm but was later amended by the prosecution.

The court heard that Crichton had severely injured Mr Davis’ eye during an incident on February 26, 2019. Police found him in the fetal position when they arrested him later that day.

Ms Christopher told the court that her client suffered delusions and believed at the time that his life and his mother’s life were in danger.

She added that he believed at the time that he was acting in self-defence.

Ms Christopher said that her client’s mental health problems blurred his culpability in the incident and that a hospital order was “the only sensible and appropriate order”.

She added: “Somebody lost their eye and that is terrible – I don’t want to minimise that – but we shouldn’t let that cloud our judgment when thinking about the needs of this young man.

“These are horrible cases, but the fact of the matter is that these horrible cases are dealt with by way of a hospital order.”

Cindy Clarke, the Director of Public Prosecutions, asked that Crichton’s sentence involve mandatory medication.

She added that the sentencing guidelines around people with mental health disorders were not just restricted to hospital orders.

Ms Clarke said: “Maybe this case will be a watershed case and he get an amendment to the Mental Health Act, but we can’t judge this by what the law doesn’t say.”

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