LOUISE MILLIGAN, REPORTER: This is Melbourne Assessment Prison. On remand, behind these walls, are some of Victoria's most hardened criminals.

But among them is a young man who isn't supposed to be here. He has a profound intellectual disability and autism.

His name is Francis and he has nowhere else to go.

(Question to Janet) Francis is turning 20 this week.

JANET, FRANCIS' MOTHER: Yeah.

LOUISE MILLIGAN: But what have the specialists told you is his mental age?

JANET: Around two, two-and-a-half.

LOUISE MILLIGAN: So he is basically a toddler running around in a grown man's body?

JANET: Yeah.

LUCY GEDDES, FRANCIS' LAWYER: It is an abject failure that we have someone like him in custody. It is not a therapeutic environment for him. It is a custodial environment, it is punitive.

LOUISE MILLIGAN: Francis has been in prison since September. He spent the first week in 23 hour-a-day solitary confinement and is now required to wear handcuffs every time he leaves his cell.

LUCY GEDDES: When I visited him in prison, when he came into the visitors' box, his shirt appeared to be covered in blood stains and his fingers appeared to be bloody.

LOUISE MILLIGAN: So he had been self-harming?

LUCY GEDDES: That's my understanding, yes.

And it was particularly distressing five days later when I appeared in court on behalf of Francis and Francis appeared via video link and he was wearing the same t-shirt and then the next day when I had a further video conference with him, so six days after that initial visit, he remained in that bloodied t-shirt.

LOUISE MILLIGAN: Francis first came to 7.30's attention more than a year ago, when a whistleblower teacher told us his school decided he was too difficult to manage and left him out in the cold on a beanbag for an entire winter school term.

His mother had no idea what was happening.

JANET: I was just so shocked. What could you do that's so wrong that you would be put outside like that?

LOUISE MILLIGAN: As a result of the story, the Victorian Government launched an investigation into the Merriang Special Development School which Francis attended.

You kind of hoped that things would improve for Francis?

JANET: Yeah.

LOUISE MILLIGAN: But did they improve?

JANET: No, he just spiralled out of control. His life just went worse downhill.

LOUISE MILLIGAN: So this is Francis' latest NDIS package.

Francis' needs are so great, the National Disability Insurance Scheme has funded him for a package of $1.5 million.

Because Francis required specialist 24/7 care, he can't live with his mum, Janet.

Under the NDIS, Francis was allocated this public housing unit and a care provider, but that provider was sacked after there were concerns Francis was being abused by his carers.

LUCY GEDDES: I've been shown photographs of Francis where his whole body is covered in bruises, which was very disturbing to see.

LOUISE MILLIGAN: New carers were installed, but Francis' Legal Aid lawyer, Lucy Geddes, was distressed by what she found when she visited the unit.

LUCY GEDDES: I was shocked in the conditions in which he was living which could be described as squalid.

There was no furniture in the house, there was only a single mattress on the floor.

There were stains all over the walls and I thought it was appalling that someone could be living in a house like that.

LOUISE MILLIGAN: She says Francis was being kept effectively as a prisoner.

LUCY GEDDES: The carers, for whatever reason, didn't think that it was appropriate for Francis to be outside, and so for days on end had been kept inside, like a caged animal.

LOUISE MILLIGAN: Francis eventually snapped. He broke down the door to the unit and absconded.

He assaulted a bystander.

The police picked him up and he has been on indefinite remand ever since because every time there is a bail application, there is no-one there to take him home because his complex needs means he can't live without comprehensive professional help.

Legal Aid Victoria says Francis is one of four clients in prison because, under the NDIS, there is no-one willing to care for them.

SONIA LAW, VICTORIA LEGAL AID: So the fear of the NDIS is that we give funds to a person, they go out to the marketplace, they can choose the service provider that best meets their needs, but if there is not a service provider who wants to provide that service, there is no market, then that person's funds are really of no use to them.

LOUISE MILLIGAN: The National Disability Insurance Scheme was supposed to be the great white hope for people with disabilities and their families. Has it been for you?

JANET: No, no.

LOUISE MILLIGAN: Legal Aid made a submission yesterday about Francis' case to the federal parliamentary committee on the NDIS.

SONIA LAW: He is not coping well in jail. He finds the environment very distressing and frightening.

A person in his situation would not usually be in custody as a result of the criminal justice circumstances.

Ordinarily, a person in his situation would be charged and then bailed. The offences aren't serious enough to attract a custodial sentence on conviction.

LOUISE MILLIGAN: In the past, Victoria's Department of Health and Human Services would have been responsible for Francis, but that's now changed.

SONIA LAW: The NDIA has described its role as only to provide funds, it is a bank. So no-one seems to be responsible to ensure that those services are there for him.

LOUISE MILLIGAN: How does it make you feel as a mum that no-one will have your son?

JANET: Yeah, it's heartbreaking. He just doesn't understand why he's there. He is going to emotionally go downhill.

KEVIN ANDREWS, NDIS PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE CHAIR: This is a tragedy. It shouldn't happen, but it is happening regrettably, and something has to be done to deal with it.

LOUISE MILLIGAN: Federal Government MP, Kevin Andrews, is chairing the committee.

KEVIN ANDREWS: For many of these people with complex mental and intellectual problems, it is not just an issue for the Commonwealth and the NDIA, it is also an issue for state services as well, and they have to come together, I believe, as a matter of urgency, and in each state fund a provider of last resort so we don't have people languishing in jail for months, and in one case here in Victoria, for nearly two years now, who should not be in jail.

LOUISE MILLIGAN: Francis had his 20th birthday yesterday.

His mum wasn't allowed to bring him a birthday present, so she put together a socks -and-jocks care package and off she went to visit her boy in jail.

LOUISE MILLIGAN: The Federal agency which manages the NDIS said in a statement that these sorts of situations are complex, but when 7.30 informed Victorian Disability Minister, Martin Foley, about Francis, he immediately personally intervened and told me this afternoon he had instructed his department to find a care provider to get Francis out of jail.

MARTIN FOLEY, VICTORIAN DISABILITY MINISTER: Today we've secured an accredited quality provider who will start tomorrow a process of engaging with Francis and starting to get him out of the remand prison.

LOUISE MILLIGAN: But the point is, minister, that there are lots of Francis' now and there will be in the future.

MARTIN FOLEY: Sadly I suspect you're very correct in that.

For Francis and anyone else that is falling through the gaps that have been created, as the National Disability Insurance Scheme rolls out, we have to do better.

The Productivity Commission only last month called for that very thing, that the Commonwealth needs to step up through the National Disability Insurance Scheme and be the provider of last resort.

That's self-evidently the case, and there is no better example than what has happened to Francis.

JANET: I don't want anyone to go through what we've been through.

LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: Louise Milligan reporting.