Vulnerable teen ‘wants to return home’

A vulnerable 18-year-old Irish woman with a severe personality disorder detained involuntarily in a UK psychiatric facility for the past 19 months has told the High Court the “most important thing is to be returned back to my country”.

The woman, said to be a significant suicide risk, told Mr Justice Seamus Noonan by video link from the UK she would not take her own life and has plans for the future, including to go to university and run a marathon.

She thinks about Ireland “every moment of every day”, misses her family and friends and even “silly things” like Supermacs, fields and cows. “I have never gone though pain like this, it makes me feel so bad on the inside.”