Autistic woman wrongly locked up in mental health hospital for 45 years

An autistic woman with a learning disability was wrongly locked up in a mental health hospital for 45 years, starting when she was just seven years old, the BBC has learned.

The woman, who is believed to be originally from Sierra Leone, and who was given the name Kasibba by the local authority to protect her identity, was also held on her own in long-term segregation for 25 years.

Kasibba is non-verbal and had no family to speak up for her. A clinical psychologist told File on 4 Investigates how she had begun a nine-year battle to release her.

The Department of Health and Social Care told the BBC it was unacceptable that so many disabled people were still being held in mental health hospitals and said it hoped reforms to the Mental Health Act would prevent inappropriate detention.

More than 2,000 autistic people and people with learning disabilities are still detained, external in mental health hospitals in England - including about 200 children. For years, the government has pledged to move many of them into community care, because they do not have any mental illness.

But all key targets in England have been missed. In the past few weeks, in its plan for 2025-26, external, NHS England said it aimed to reduce the reliance on mental health inpatient care for people with a learning disability and autistic people, delivering a minimum 10% reduction.

However, Dan Scorer, head of policy and public affairs at the charity Mencap, is not impressed. "Hundreds of people are still languishing, detained, who should have been freed and should be supported in the community, because we haven't seen the progress that was promised," he said.

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Source: BBC News, 4 March 2025