KAY DANES feels she knows something of what David Hicks, the Australian detained in Guantanamo Bay for more than five years without trial, is going through.

Arrested on trumped-up charges of embezzlement and tax avoidance in Laos in December 2000, Kay and her husband, Kerry, languished in a prison for 10 months. Kerry, a former SAS warrant officer, was repeatedly beaten. Torture of inmates, including burning their genitals, was a regular occurrence and performed in view of other prisoners.

Even worse, says Kay, was the mental anguish, including constantly being told by the prison guards that she was about to be released.

"They said it so many times but it would never happen," she says. "I know David is going through the same thing. He's been told to pack his bags and then sent back to his cell. Of all the things they can do to you, this is the worst … It is mental torture."

Kay does not doubt that claims by Hicks's lawyers this week that his mental health is deteriorating rapidly are correct.

She also doesn't doubt that the Government's assertion that Hicks is fine is politically motivated nonsense. "It's a standard response they give to families, no matter what has actually happened," she says.

Australia has consistently taken the word of US military authorities that Hicks's claims of mistreatment are false and he is in good health.

"Those words 'good health' are always used," says Martin Hodgson, senior advocate for the Foreign Prisoners Support Service, which supports Australians arrested overseas. "It's become a running joke among lawyers and people like ourselves … The biggest problem we have is that the Australian Government is never the advocate of the prisoners themselves, they are the advocates of the foreign governments detaining the prisoners …

"I don't know what the motivation is - maybe they don't care, or they don't want to ruffle diplomatic feathers."

Hicks this week declined to meet Australian officials, saying in a letter he was frustrated by their ineffectual efforts and refusal to acknowledge his failing health, and because he was punished if he complained to them.

An official from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's consular affairs division, who asked not to be named, said he would not comment on the Hicks case but defended the work of consular officials. With more than 180 Australians in foreign jails, the caseload was massive, he told the Herald.

While there might be some disgruntled people, the "vast majority of correspondence was positive" for the department. "These are people who are doing it tough overseas but people have to understand we are not their jailers," he said. "We have a policy and practice of providing very frank briefings. It's not in our interests to sugarcoat things."

Many Australian diplomats, Hodgson stresses, are wonderful and go out of their way to help, but many also say they are frustrated by the indifference of senior officials in Canberra.

The Daneses' ordeal is a case in point. Kay says the Australian ambassador in Laos, Jonathan Thwaites, was magnificent and that she and Kerry received much more support than Hicks has.

But there were incidents that disturbed her, nonetheless. "The ambassador took our case straight to the Laotian President because our situation was so outrageous. He got reprimanded by [the Foreign Affairs Minister] Alexander Downer for breaching protocol," she says.

She also recalls one occasion when she and her husband were taken from a police vehicle to a meeting with consular officials. "There was an embassy doctor watching and he reported back to our parents that we weren't being ill-treated. How could he tell? He only saw us from a distance for a few moments."

• David Hicks Case Information