Dezi Freeman and Helen Haines’ alleged attacker needed mental health help before attacks. None came

“We know that people fall through the cracks in the system all the time, but it’s a revolving door,” says Gunaratne. “We’ll have a tragedy and then outrage, and we might even have an inquiry to tell us what we already know, but nothing ever changes. The system is too overwhelmed to even keep waitlists.”

In Wangaratta, director of the Phillipson Street Medical Clinic, Dr Patrick O’Connor, says there are only a few beds for those suffering from serious psychiatric illnesses in the area.

“There is one mental health service based out of Albury Wodonga, and you can be on the phone for ages, and you just have to keep calling back to get someone on the line. You really have to push your case.”

The horrific police shootings by Freeman in August 2025 have added further strain to services in the region, locals say, with police and their families still recovering.

Australia’s mental health system is designed for crisis, explains Gunaratne. Patients are often told they must be fully detoxed to get a longer-term bed beyond a brief emergency stay in a psychiatric ward, for example, but there are few spots at drug and alcohol treatment centres to detox. Funding tends to flow to the most visible choke points – to reducing hospital waiting times – but without longer-term treatment and preventative programs, more people are forced into emergency rooms anyway, Gunaratne says.

“And then when someone is then discharged, you have to follow up,” O’Connor says, describing years of inadequate investment in the sector.

“Often we have to seek out private psychiatrists or use telehealth, which is not ideal, and sometimes people are falling through the cracks. I can’t talk about what happened [with independent MP Helen Haines], but the situation [in general] is not good,” he says.

There are just two inpatient detox beds in the region for planned alcohol and drug withdrawals: one at Northeast Health Wangaratta and one at Albury Wodonga Health. Two healthcare sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, say waiting lists for the beds now stretch well into 2027.

Dr Paul Molina Chavez, director of the Wangaratta Medical Centre, says patients often have to make do with telehealth consultations because of the demand, while others are forced to make the three-hour drive to Melbourne to seek private treatment.

“And there are not enough private clinics, which often have waiting times of several weeks, or even months, themselves,” says Molina Chavez. A lack of specialist training across regional Victoria forces medical students to gain the expertise in Melbourne or Sydney, he says, and few return to the country.

“The saddest thing is knowing that we have effective treatments, but so often people can’t access them,” says Gunaratne. “It’s so hard to get someone into care.”

Sometimes, she adds, “people turned away are even labelled treatment resistant, when they’re not, making it even harder for them to get support”.

Across the state, waiting times for alcohol and drug treatment have more than doubled since the pandemic, according to Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association CEO Scott Drummond, with regional communities facing “acute gaps” in care.

“Out of desperation, people may end up in emergency departments,” he says. “Regional communities cannot continue to be left behind.”

Meanwhile, for someone already perilously close to anti-government ideology, being cut loose from the system after brief stints of emergency care can become a deep betrayal, making them even harder to reach.

Research by Griffith University published just days before the Freeman attack last year found that those who hold conspiratorial, anti-government views were more likely to engage in violence themselves or support violence directed at governments and officials.

“Of course, that doesn’t mean all sovereign citizens are violent or people who are mentally unwell will become sovereign citizens,” says Kristina Murphy, a criminologist who helped lead the research. “But [sovereign citizens] are less likely to believe in the authority of governments, they report more anger at institutions, and that makes them more willing to back insurrection or violence against officials.”

More from our Helen Haines coverage

Witnesses speak: The generous words Helen Haines had for her rescuers‘Don’t let violence win’: Cathy McGowan’s plea as Haines fights for lifeCourt appearance: Police weigh up further charges against accused attackerAnalysis: What happened in the terrifying seconds Haines was struckBrendan Nugent: Suspect clashed with neighbours as his health unravelled