Canberra's top cop says there is "probably" too much focus on the privacy of mental health patients at the expense of community safety following an alleged stabbing incident at the Australian National University.
Alex Leonard Ophel, 24, had been let out of the Gawanggal Mental Health Unit, in Bruce, on Monday, September 18, when he allegedly armed himself with a frypan and a knife and made his way onto the grounds of the ANU.
Once on the campus he allegedly injured four people, stabbing two 20-year-old female students, one critically.
After intensive care treatment, both have now been released from hospital, Chief Police Officer Neil Gaughan said.
Fiona Coffey, the mother of alleged victim Ilysha Perry, said that her daughter will have serious long term health issues and "may never be the same".
Ophel has been charged with two accounts of attempted murder.
Mental Health Minister Emma Davidson has defended the leave practices of ACT mental health facilities.
Speaking on ABC radio on Wednesday, Mr Gaughan said "we probably [need to] get back to more the middle ground" on the issue of releasing patients.
"We shouldn't lock them away and throw away the key ... we need to treat it as a health issue, but by the same token we need to ensure public safety is looked after," he said.
"At the moment we probably place too much focus on the privacy of the individual patient ... Does the individual privacy outweigh the safety of the whole community? I would argue that it probably doesn't."
Canberra was a safe city and incidents like the alleged attack at ANU were "extremely rare", the police officer said.
The ACT government has not been forthcoming around the conditions of Ophel's release from the secure facility.
He had previously been a patient at the high security Dhulwa mental health facility in Symonston, which provides around-the-clock care for adults with complex mental needs.
Police have said Ophel was already on the grounds of the ANU when a nurse from Gawanggal called triple-zero.
However, Mr Gaughan also indicated a previous call had been made to police to report Ophel missing.
"We were notified of the incident via a triple-o call, and we responded to that. Prior to that, we received some call from the facility saying that Mr Ophel had not returned from a walk," he said.
When staff called triple zero, they were told it was not an emergency and to contact the police assistance line.
When asked if a missing mental health patient was an emergency, Mr Gaughan responded:
"Not in the circumstances that were explained to us at the time. Unfortunately we see people get out of those institutions quite regularly, a missing persons is quite a common occurrence in the ACT. If there's a threat of violence or something like that at the time, then clearly it's appropriate to ring triple zero, and in those circumstances it wasn't."
ANU chancellor Julie Bishop and university security staff expressed anger at the events that unfolded, wishing they had more warning before the alleged attack.
The ACT government has commissioned chief psychiatrist Dr Dinesh Arya to review the incident.
