Assessment of the perceived need for a psychiatric service to a magistrates' court

One approach to diversion from custody of mentally disordered offenders is to provide a psychiatric liaison service to local magistrates' courts. We aimed to establish whether such a scheme was needed locally. Questionnaires for the bench, defence solicitors and bail information officers, enquiring as to the perceived need for a psychiatric assessment, social service care and specialist bail provision, were distributed for all those appearing in a magistrates' court who had been held overnight in police custody. Responses were received for 223 individuals. An immediate psychiatric report was considered necessary for 4.9% of cases. In 2.2% of cases it was thought that remand in custody could have been avoided if such an opinion had been available. In 8% of cases it was thought that remand in custody could have been avoided if specialist bail provision were available. We conclude that availability of a specialist bail provision would lead to a greater number of diversions from custody than providing a psychiatric service to this magistrates' court.