Diverting the mentally ill away from the criminal justice system and towards health services could save £20,000 per case, a report has claimed.

The Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health report, Diversion: A better way for criminal justice and mental health, compared the costs of criminal procedures with those of running a diversion scheme and concluded that such schemes pay for themselves.

The report urged the NHS and police and prison services to fund diversion teams throughout the country. The government should also collect and publish more information on unit costs in the justice system so that comparisons can be made, it added. Angela Greatley, chief executive of the Sainsbury centre, said that some areas of the country still have no diversion teams nearly 20 years after a government report called for national coverage.

Ian Kelcey, chairman of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association and a partner at Bristol firm Kelcey & Hall, said the report ‘demonstrates the value of a solicitor representing defendants at the police station’.