The department has been charged with the man's care and welfare since he was 12, but says it can no longer care for him in the community because of his erratic, violent and at-times sexualised behaviour. In the past few weeks, care workers have been trying to teach the man about the law and what behaviours are against the law. It's unclear how much he understands. His behaviour has been challenging. He has started fires, is alleged to have sexually harassed a 15-year-old, smashed up a support workers' station and caused widespread damage to his residential facility (those allegations are yet to be tested in court). The department says it is no longer viable to keep him in the community. The man fronted the court again on Wednesday and at several points during the hearing he became so anxious he buried his head in his support worker’s shoulder. At other times he appeared to be asleep. The court heard the department initially planned to put him into a residential facility, but that facility did not have specialised services for someone with his disabilities

The department now proposes to lock him up at the Parkville youth detention facility, until a purpose-built secure unit can be built for him at a forensic residential facility in Fairfield. Judge Chambers said the case highlighted the lack of options for profoundly disabled people caught up in the criminal justice system. "It has become clear that ... there are no services available to the department in the Victorian community that can meet [his] very severe and complex needs," she said. Judge Chambers said the department was asking her to rule that the man's "complex needs can only be met by placing him in [Parkville] because there's simply nowhere else to place him". Under Victorian law, courts must be satisfied a custodial order will provide a person with support, guidance, assistance and treatment but Judge Chambers said the department had not demonstrated how this would be provided at Parkville.

It will take between four to six months to build the unit for the man at the Fairfield facility but the court heard the timeframe was more likely to be at the top end of that estimate. Victoria Legal Aid barrister Amy Brennan said sending a young man with profound disabilities to Parkville would be a deeply inappropriate outcome. “I am nothing short of deeply outraged at what I think is a deeply aspirational target of him spending six months in custody,” Ms Brennan said. A witness told the court the man would spend much of his time at Parkville alone. "For his own safety, because of his vulnerabilities, we would have to house [him] separately," she said.

There were no specialised support services for young people with complex care needs at Parkville, the witness said. Judge Chambers said had the man not suffered from profound disabilities, and been able to plead guilty to the offences, he may well have avoided custody and instead be sentenced to a community order. "Young people like [him] are worse off because of their disability ... and it seems to me highly regrettable," she said. The man's case is remarkably similar to others in the adult court system over the past six years. Last year The Age highlighted the case of another man who spent 16 months behind bars for a crime that, had he pleaded guilty, might not have resulted in jail time.

His situation, and that of an intellectually disabled woman imprisoned for 18 months despite her unfitness to stand trial, raised concern among lawyers, the judiciary and disability advocates that authorities were not doing enough to find vulnerable people accommodation and support, and that prisons were housing those with nowhere else to go. Judge Chambers said she was "greatly" concerned the department had no plan for the man, but simply "a plan for a plan". She adjourned the matter to a later date.