CIVIL liberty groups yesterday reacted with outrage to a controversial proposal that people in England and Wales with severe personality disorders should be locked up indefinitely.

Under the proposed amendment to the Mental Health Act, to be announced by Home Secretary Jack Straw at Westminster next week, people with psychopathic illnesses that are deemed ''untreatable'' could be jailed regardless of whether they have committed a crime.

A spokesman for the Scottish Executive said it was ''far too early to speculate'' whether such a policy would be adopted in Scotland.

If the legislation is passed, England and Wales will become the only countries in the world to detain ''untreatable'' people before they commit a crime. The move is designed to close a legal loophole which allows dangerous offenders into the community after being released from prison, or threatening to kill.

Currently, patients can be detained only if doctors believe that they would respond to treatment. Most professionals believe that the majority of people who suffer from severe personality disorder cannot be helped, yet they cannot be held in hospital or forced to take medication unless convicted of an offence.

The proposal follows an investigation launched in the wake of the 1998 conviction of Michael Stone for his hammer attack on Lin, Megan, and Josie Russell in Kent.

Stone, who was repeatedly released from various mental institutions and prisons, told his psychiatric nurse that he felt he was going to kill and asked for help five days before the murders but, as doctors believed he was beyond treatment, nothing could be done.

He is now serving three life sentences in a prison as he still does not qualify for a secure hospital unit due to the ''untreatable'' nature of his illness.

Under the new legislation, a Medical Legal Panel would be able to identify and forcibly imprison people like Stone without a time limit.

However, civil rights campaigners were outraged at the suggestion of jailing people who had not committed a crime.

Mr John Wadham, director of Liberty, said: ''Locking up people who have committed no criminal offences, especially for long periods, is wrong.

''People should be punished for what they have done, not for what some expert thinks they might do in the future.

''Mental health experts do not agree about the basis of this illness, have difficulty in deciding whether or not a person is suffering from it and have no accurate way of deciding who is or is not a danger to the public.''

But the proposal was welcomed by Mr Michael Howlett, of mental health organisation the Zito Trust, who said: ''At the moment, we have a policy of despair where these people are thrown into prison and not given any treatment. Psychiatrists say they are not treatable, but they can respond to psychotherapy and psychology and long-term treatment of the underlying cause of their problems.''

The legislation will not apply in Scotland, where there is a separate investigation under way.

The McLean Committee, chaired by High Court judge Lord McLean, was set up in January and will produce a report early next year investigating the sentencing and treatment of violent and sexual offenders, including those with personality disorders, to be debated by the Scottish Parliament.

q A man who believes he is the Son of God was yesterday sent to Broadmoor without limit of time for stabbing his social worker more than 100 times at a halfway hostel in Tooting, south London, on November 23, last year.

At the Old Bailiey, paranoid schizophrenic Anthony Joseph, 27, was found guilty of the manslaughter of Mrs Jenny Morrison, 51, of Wimbledon, on the grounds of diminished responsibility, after an insanity plea was rejected.