The short, wiry 84-year-old hikes up his sarong and swings his scythe through the stalks, methodically cutting his way across the fields. While those far younger than him rest in the shade, he plods on, unwilling to waste any time. After all, he has already had half a century of his life stolen from him.

Arrested for killing his father in 1958, Mr James was ruled mentally ill by a judge, sent to an asylum for the criminally insane - and then forgotten.

Decades after his doctors pronounced him cured, he remained trapped in a criminal justice nightmare. The hospital could release him only to the prisons authority. The prisons authority could pick him up only under a court order. The courts never called for him because they could not find his file.

When he was finally released, he became a hero in Sri Lanka, and his ordeal a source of embarrassment as it exposed the bloated, inefficient bureaucracy.

While President Mahinda Rajapaksa gave him 500,000 rupees (S$40,000) to make up for his troubles, there are others trapped in the same legal limbo, says a psychiatrist at the asylum where Mr James was held.

Mr James wishes he had been convicted of murdering his father. At least then, he would have been freed after 15 or 20 years in prison. But a conviction would have been unlikely - for his father was still alive.

Born in Hipauwa, a village 90km east of Colombo, Mr James was 12 when a coconut fell onto his head so hard that his nose bled for a week. Plagued by headaches, he became forgetful and began acting erratically, disappearing for months at a time. His relatives came to think of him as a madman.

His mother ran away when he was a child and his father was a notorious drinker who, after remarrying, shunned his old family.

One night in 1954, Mr James, then 34, walked past his father's house and thought he saw blood on the grass. Looking up, he saw a man flashing a knife.

Fearing his father had been stabbed, he ran to the nearest home and alerted the police, but they did not find any blood. Instead, they arrested him after being told by others that he was insane.

The details of what happened next are lost to hazy memories. Mr James' father had really been stabbed by an unknown assailant but the police accused Mr James of doing it and did not wait to see if anyone had actually died.

Before he could even be charged, a judge ruled him mentally ill and ordered that he be treated at Angoda Hospital in Colombo. After a few years, the doctors said he was better. His only visitors were his uncle and another relative, who began questioning why he was not freed.

His father, perhaps the only one who might have cleared up the confusion, never visited him. He died in 1981, 23 years after Mr James' arrest. The uncle who occasionally visited him died 15 years ago.

Psychiatrist Neil Fernando, who inherited his case, said Mr James had recovered long ago and the courts were informed but never replied. There are at least a half-dozen other patients in the same situation, he said, adding: 'This is part and parcel of our system here... patients who have been brought in and forgotten about.'

Late last year, Mr James contracted an eye ailment - and suddenly reappeared in the justice system. Forced to transfer him to another hospital for treatment, prison officials began asking who he was. He was given a date for his long-delayed day in court and assigned lawyers.

One day, a prison guard overheard Mr James telling his story to fellow inmates. The guard turned out to be the son of a man who had accompanied Mr James' uncle on his visits, and he related the story to stunned relatives.

'We had never heard of him,' said Mr P.P. Jayawardane, his uncle's son.

A month later, Mr James was finally set free.

In Hipauwa, the footpaths are now roads. The 100 houses of mud walls and thatch roofs have grown to 350 homes of brick and concrete. Villagers who once rode ox-carts now have cars and motorcycles.

Everyone has cellphones, which Mr James, barely familiar with the invention, refers to as 'calls'.

Nearly everyone Mr James knew has died. His uncle's house where he spent so many years has been abandoned and the land he would have inherited has been claimed decades ago by his extended family.

But Mr James says he is not bitter, and that it is simply his fate to have been imprisoned for 50 years. He does not blame the government, the hospital or even his father. In the end, he says, he has only himself to blame.

'I should have fought harder to get myself out.'