A man who shuffles along inner Newcastle's streets day and night is a tragic example of the new right of mentally ill people to be independent of care. He's known as Richard, and in my column in The Herald today I tell of the many attempts to help him and his persistent, silent rejections of those good intentions. He is dressed in rags, with no crotch in his trousers at the moment; his hair is a solid wad of dirt; and he is not known to take food or shelter directly from anyone. This has been the case for a decade or more. I'm told that Richard, who may be in his 50s, has been assaulted a number of times, and he has the habit of walking straight onto our busiest roads without looking.

I know that the public's capacity to impose assistance on the mentally ill has been reduced by both the re-arrangements of the Richmond Scheme and the 2007 Mental Health Act, but should not our mental health authorities have a closer look at this case?

The act does allow for taking a person into care involuntarily if the person's behaviour "for the time being is so irrational as to justify a conclusion on reasonable grounds that temporary care, treatment or control of the person is necessary for the person's own protection from serious physical harm". The act says that "the continuing condition of the person, including any likely deterioration in the person's condition and the likely effects of any such deterioration, are to be taken into account".

I fear we will be shocked when it is too late that we did not help Richard. Do you share my concern? Or do you believe that the mentally ill have the right to be as mentally ill as they wish?