But a group representing those with mental illness claim some of the most vulnerable in society are being ignored. RICHARD SHERRIFF reports.

For most of us, the concept of a bill of rights is abstract to the point where it has little real significance.

We have families, jobs, the hole-in-the-wall machine, dispenses cash when we want it and life, for the most part, proceeds in an orderly fashion.

Compare that to be taken from your any hour of the day, sectioned under the Mental Health Order and confined at someone else's discretion in a mental institution with no right to redress whatsoever.

When you're released, experience trying to get back on you feet with inadequate support with little or no understanding from the community around you.

This is the world that John James and his colleagues in the voluntary group STEER want to end.

They want five conditions written into the bill of rights without which people with mental illness will continue to have less rights than cattle.

If that sounds melodramatic, the 33 year-old has first hand experience of a system he says is failing the very people it was set up to help.

He has suffered from mental illness for seven years. He has been institutionalised three times and now lives with the illness and the stigma attached to it.

As a founder member of STEER (Support, Training, Education, Employment, Research) he makes no bones of the impact it has had upon him.

'The main problem is that, because of the stigma attached to mental illness, we have been quiet for too long."'

"All we are asking for is the right to be treated as human beings and at the moment we are being treated worse than cattle. Cattle have far more rights than people undergoing psychiatric treatment."

"'Ordinary people' only encounter problems when they are pushed up against the harsh chain link fence at the edge of the system. Most of the time they are comfortable somewhere in the middle and it isn't until something happens that you realise how controlled and limited your rights are and how fragile they are."

Mental illness affects one in four people at some time in their lives. That makes it highly probable that each of us knows someone affected, though, of course, we are often completely unaware.

But, while praising the work of individuals and advances made in psychiatric, including care in the community. Mr James says the system is still under too much pressure to provide adequate treatment.

"The hospital system is based on on control and containment. There is too great a reliance on medication as opposed to counselling and psychotherapy and once out of hospital there is inadequate support in the community.

"I know of one man who was given an emergency appointment for counselling. It wasn't until the following year."

Chief among STEER's goals is the right to independent advocacy for people 'sectioned' or admitted to hospital without their consent.

"We feel that, if a person is being sectioned, then they should have the right to call upon an advocate. Or, if they are not able, then an advocacy agency can be contacted to represent the person.

"It is needed because, basically, what we're talking about is abduction. You are taken against your will and you are effectively locked up with no freedom of movement."

In addition, he claims an advocate could also act act for a patient in relation to medical treatment, much of which Mr James claims is often used as a matter of expediency as opposed to beneficial purpose.

"There is an over-reliance on medication because resources are scarce and there isn't the money for intensive counselling and psychotherapy."

Another urgent requirement is the right for mentally ill people to be seen by a psychiatric doctor or nurse as soon as they come into contact with the authorities.

"Sometimes mentally ill people are arrested and they may have been taking drink or drugs. They need psychiatric help right away but we have had incidences where people have been left for 24, 36 even 48 hours over bank holiday weekends without any treatment at all.

"Then there are the what are known as the Friday or Saturday Night Specials. People who come into hospital with a drink of drugs overdose. They may get their stomachs pumped and be kept overnight, then they will sign themselves out the next day. They get no psychiatric treatment. Our view is that, if there is evidence of mental health difficulties, then the person should have a right to see a train psychiatric senior house officer."

Item four on the wish list is the right to access to medical records because, even though legislation exists allowing access, experience has shown it is still difficult for people to do so.

"We have found that some people with mental health difficulties have been actively discouraged from trying to get access to their records.

"We know of people who have made written requests to see their records and are still waiting after five years. We feel it is a fundamental right to see what is written about you."

The final item contained in STEER's response to the commission is the right to choose treatment in advance of being detained. In simple terms it would enable a person with a history of mental illness to discuss their condition in the event of them being admitted to hospital for treatment.

"At present you can be given any treatment without your consent from electro-convulsive therapy to anti-psychotic drugs and in extreme cases psych-surgery. Some of those have horrific side effects.

"They basically turn you into a zombie and what we want to see is a situation where, as in the case of consent in a general hospital, a person has the opportunity to discuss treatment in advance and say what treatment they are prepared to receive."

'what we're talking about is abduction. You are taken against your will and you are effectively locked up with no freedom of movement'

Containing the problem instead of alleviating it

John James was 24 when he arrived from south Wales to study at Magee college, Londonderry.

Away from his family, it left him isolated when depression struck.

"I was two years into my course at Magee when I started to become illl. I had always considered myself to be happy easy-go-lucky sort of person.

"All of a sudden, I stopped believing in myself, I found that I couldn't complete my assignments and I lost all confidence. It seemed like I was falling apart.

"I believed I had been given a place at university because I was so worthless and pathetic that they had given a place out of sympathy."

He finally saw a student counsellor who sent him to a GP and after medication failed to help, he was admitted to psychiatric hospital for the first time.

"I expected to be treated like a human being. I was naive. I believed psychiatric hospital was the as a general hospital' that you would go in, get treated and get out.

"What I found was a regime of control and containment. The doctors, nurses and psychiatrists would not talk to you. They had other priorities and it was very much a case of being left to your own devices."

"There are still hospitals which are about containment and control rather than treatment. All they are concerned about is preventing you from harming yourself or other people."

"I left hospital with a prescription and an appointment to see a psychiatrist in three weeks time, that is all the support they give you when you leave hospital."

"There is a voluntary system out there, which is basically keeping people alive."

After two more periods in hospital John now finds a purpose in his work for STEER that has helped him regain self-esteem and a sense of his own worth, but like his fellow volunteers life is unpredictable.

"We have good days and bad days, good weeks and bad weeks, we watch each other an you get to know the signs."

"Sometime you get so frightened and scared about the day ahead that you can't go out the front door, you feel that people see the badness in you see that you are worthless."

Simply being in that situation also brings pressures and disappointments.

"I take each day as it comes and I do work and strive hard, its my aim to get back to full-time work, but its been eight years and I'm still single when I might have expected to be married and have a family."

"I'm 33 years old and still living in a one-bedroom flat."

"What doesn't help is people's attitudes. You can't see mental illness and that means that people ten to feel that there is nothing wrong with you."

"I'm sitting here in a suit and ostensibly I look absolutely fine. Inside, I'm struggling, but, because that's inside, they don't see that."