A British national who apparently took his own life in Sydney's Villawood Immigration Detention Centre was being investigated for serious sex offences, an inquest has heard.
He is one of three detainees presumed to have taken their own lives in a 10-week period who are now the subject of a joint coronial investigation.
It will examine the welfare management of 29-year-old Briton David Saunders and a 41-year-old Iraqi national who cannot be named for legal reasons.
The third man, 36-year-old Josefa Rauluni of Fiji, jumped from a balcony on the day he was due to be deported in September 2010, State Coroner Mary Jerram has previously heard.
The two other men 
Naomi Sharp, counsel assisting the coroner, said an issue was whether 'the right information was communicated at the right time, and if the right responses were made ... or if the ball was dropped at any time'.
The inquest will look into the 'pathway' between three key agencies - the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC); Serco, the company contracted with running Villawood; and International Health and Medical Services (IHMS), which provides health services to the detention centre.
Dealing with an application for a non-publication order, the coroner said Mr Saunders was the subject of a criminal investigation by UK police at the time of his death.
It involved allegations of serious sexual offences, she said, which he had strenuously denied.
Ms Sharp said Mr Saunders was found with a suicide note, and an autopsy report noted evidence consistent with previous self-harm attempts.
He had been placed in the highest-security compound at Villawood after his short-term tourist visa expired on November 10.
DIAC had been notified of concerns held by his girlfriend and mother that he might self-harm, but he was assessed by the department as being low risk and having no history of mental illness, the inquest was told.
Ms Sharp said evidence will show IHMS made various attempts to assess him, but he was reported to be unwilling to participate.
On December 6, after Mr Saunders had been refused a bridging visa, the IHMS prepared a health discharge assessment that noted no mental health issues. He died two days later.
Ms Sharp said a new suite of policies that governed mental health screening had been published by DIAC in April 2009, but the roll-out did not occur until November 2010.
They included programs identifying survivors of torture and trauma, and two others offering psychological support and mental health screening.
'Those policies would have been those applying at around the time (the UK and Iraqi men) died,' but not the Fijian man, who had missed a psychiatric appointment the day before his death, Ms Sharp said.
On his transfer to Villawood in April - after being found not to be a genuine refugee - the Iraqi man had reported in a Cerco risk assessment that he had felt life was not worth living.
On August 3, a nurse noted he was a 'broken man' and recommended a review by a psychiatrist, but that didn't happen until August 30.
Ms Sharp said the man was then found to have been suffering adjustment disorder with anxiety and depression.
The man had been in detention for 341 days and had apparently articulated his fears of returning to Iraq in a statement.
The inquest is continuing.
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