Lawyers have welcomed a new agreement allowing seriously mentally ill prisoners to get help overseas, but claim it should benefit more inmates.

Defence lawyers Elizabeth Christopher and Llewellyn Peniston represented schizophrenic inmate Lorenzo Robinson who battled for six years to get specialist treatment overseas.

Mr. Robinson committed suicide while in custody at Westgate in July 2008 before getting the treatment experts said he needed.

The lawyers applauded a "statement of intent" recently signed by Government, Bermuda Hospitals Board and Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust.

But they claimed it should benefit more than the handful of inmates with severe mental illness like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Mentally ill inmates are said to make up 12 to 15 percent of Bermuda's prison population.

Mid-Atlantic Wellness Institute's chief of psychiatry Michael Radford said only four cases in the past 40 years would qualify for this overseas care.

"It's not a large number, but it's a group of people we have failed in the past," Dr. Radford said during a press conference last week.

Ms Christopher said: "Trust me, to suggest that there are four people with such needs over 40 years understates the problem.

"What happens is that with the current inadequate infrastructure, those people who would benefit from the treatment now proposed seek what the mental health professional urged upon Mr. Robinson take your straight [jail] time knowing that you will be released back into society after a finite number of years.

"I hope that with the implementation of the programme people with mental illness and those who counsel them will elect to submit to juries the question of whether they are not guilty by reason of insanity, confident that the consequence will be real medical treatment. In Lorenzo Robinson's case his mental illness was treatable."

Mr. Peniston added there were "a number of young people in Westgate" that needed this sort of care, which has been lacking on the Island.

"Lorenzo Robinson was a prime example. It has taken all of these years and the loss of life and the continued deterioration of mental health on the part of these needy members of our community before a partial solution has arrived.

"So all I can do is commend the Minister of Health for his efforts in securing this recent agreement and express how regrettable it is that many years passed and we have failed to provide a home grown solution for those who are mentally challenged and in need of professional help."