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Mental health

Examples of ASBOs given to people with mental health problems.

Examples of ASBOs used against those with mental health problems

Francis McCann - A 27-year-old man who suffers from schizophrenia given an ASBO. The mental health charity SANE has criticised the issuing of the order; a spokesman said: "What a person with serious mental health problems requires is a full assessment by mental health professionals, resulting in a realistic and supportive care plan...For many mentally ill people the stigma and distress caused by an ASBO could make matters even worse” (August 2009)

Sonny Grainger - A 12-year-old boy who suffers from Oppositional Defiant Disorder given an order (June 2009)

Jamie Cooke - A 24-year-old aggressive beggar, who failed in a test-case to overturn his order at the High Court, has admitted breaching it on six occasions. His lawyers had argued that his ASBO was "unjust and effectively criminalised him" for his mental health problems. And that Cooke's "emotionally unstable personality disorder" meant he "cannot help himself" and was incapable of complying with the order. He had been diagnosed by a psychiatrist as having a personality disorder and suffering from post-traumatic stress (November 2008)

Anon - Neighbours of a woman suffering from severe mental health problems expressed concern when police revealed they were considering giving her an ASBO (January 2008)

Amy Beth Dallamura - A 46-year-old who suffers from a serious emotional disorder who has been rescued by emergency services over 50 times from suicide attempts, at a cost of over £1 million, has breached her ASBO for the fifth time. It bans her from going in the sea, onto beaches or onto Aberystwyth's promenade (December 2007)

Sharon Tinsley - A 21-year-old jailed for the second time for making nuisance 999 calls (December 2007)

Clive Barker - A 49-year-old "child-like" man who breached his ASBO twice by playing practical jokes on his neighbours admitted to hospital to have his mental state assessed (September 2007)

Katie & Ashleigh Lynch - 19-year-old identical twins currently subject to an interim order for unruly behaviour have been found to suffer from Asperger's syndrome and attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder. Despite this police will attempt to have a full ASBO imposed at a hearing later this year (August 2007)

Danny Walsh - An 53-year-old with severe learning and communication difficulties, and a string of court appearances going back over 20 years, given a two-year order (March 2007)

Anita Bernard - An 18-year-old who suffers from schizophrenia given an order (February 2007)

Danny Henderson - A 23-year-old with mental health problems threatened with an order (November 2006)

Thomas O'Brien - A homeless man with mental health problems arrested for breaching his order (October 2006)

Mark Smith - A 32-year-old with Asperger's syndrome has been banned from touching people and saying inappropriate things in public (June 2006)

William Atkinson - A 45-year-old with a history of hoarding 'rubbish and putrid waste' was arrested for breaching his order which forbids him from doing so. In interview Atkinson said Uncle Bulgaria, a character from the children's series the Wombles, had told him to collect the rubbish. In court his lawyer said: "This is a very difficult situation, there has been a clinical diagnosis of severe personality disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder and recently he has started hearing voices in his head." He also said these diagnoses were made in 1983 (June 2005)

Mark Anthony O'Byrne - A 37-year-old with a personality disorder banned from possessing a mobile phone after a string of hoax calls to emergency services (April 2005)

Margaret Porter - A 50-year-old woman with a paranoid personality disorder served a six year order after she threw three sticks of rhubarb at her brother in the latest installment of a family feud (March 2005)