The psychiatrist who had ultimate responsibility for mental health services in immigration detention has likened the Australian government’s treatment of asylum seekers in detention to torture.

Dr Peter Young, the former director of mental health services at detention centre service provider International Health and Mental Services (IHMS), has told media that the system is deliberately designed to cause harm.

Compelled to give evidence at a national inquiry into children in immigration detention last week, Dr Young said the system is designed to harm people so they want to return to where they came from.

“If we take the definition of torture to be the deliberate harming of people in order to coerce them into a desired outcome, I think it does fulfil that definition,” he said.

Until early last month, Dr Young managed mental health services for IHMS. He is now one of the very few who have worked inside the detention system to speak out.

“When you go to Manus Island and you walk down what is called the ‘walk of shame’ between the compounds and you see the men there at the fences, it’s an awful experience,” he said.

Young’s comments come as Amnesty International prepares a submission to the United Nations claiming Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers puts it in violation of the Convention against Torture.

Amnesty spokesman Graeme McGregor said Dr Young’s claims come as no surprise.

“Our findings upon visiting Manus Island detention centre were that the conditions there violated the Conventions against Torture in that they were cruel and humiliating,” he said.

“We don’t believe it qualifies as torture itself, but it does violate the convention.”

Appearing at the Human Rights Commission’s inquiry last week, Dr Young said the Immigration Department had asked IHMS to withdraw damning statistics about the mental health rates of children in detention.

He says the department seemed scared that such statistics would threaten its policy of deterrence.

“The level of acceptance that the environment is the factor that has led to the condition, or is preventing the effectiveness of treatment, is often strongly opposed, and we’ve been told at times that it is unacceptable to state that,” he said.

But at the inquiry, Immigration Department secretary Martin Bowles responded to claims that IMHS was regularly overridden by departmental staff.

“Not to my knowledge. I would be very upset if that was the case,” he said.

Bowles hit back when asked whether conditions on Christmas Island were designed to break the will of asylum seekers.

“I am actually offended by these statements. It attacks the professionalism of our staff,” he said.

Labor’s immigration spokesman Richard Marles said he was concerned by Dr Young’s claims.

“If there is any truth to the suggestion that the way in which our offshore processing facilities are being run is to try and pressure people into going home before they’ve had their refugee status determination occur, that is obviously unacceptable,” he said.

The immigration detention policy that is currently in operation was introduced by Labor, but Marles says the party’s policy was designed primarily to save lives at sea.

“At no point did we intend for Manus or Nauru to operate as hellholes,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists has congratulated Dr Young on speaking out.

“It’s very important that all health professionals working in the closed immigration detention environment think very seriously about their professional and personal, moral and ethical obligations,” spokeswoman Dr Sarah Mares said.

“Health professions who do choose to speak out about the things that they’re witnessing or feeling concerned about will be supported and endorsed by their professional bodies.”