A SENIOR Magistrate acted unlawfully and without jurisdiction when she ordered a man to be committed to St Ann’s Psychiatric Hospital during a civil custody matter, the High Court has ruled.

Justice Marcia Ayers-Caesar found that the man’s constitutional rights were breached after he was detained for about 92 hours, strip-searched, taunted by police, held in a faeces-covered cell and transported to the psychiatric hospital in chains.

In a 30-page judgment delivered yesterday, the judge ruled that the man’s committal was unlawful, unconstitutional and void from the outset.