The court was asked as to the separation on sentence of a mother from a very young child.
Held: A sentencing court is bound by section 6(1) of the Human Rights Act 1998 to have regard for the provisions of the Convention when sentencing. Whilst the prison service was entitled to have a policy that children should not in general stay with their mothers in prison after the child reaches eighteen months, it was not permissible for that policy to be inflexible or to be applied inflexibly. The overriding aim of the policy was the welfare of the child, and that required allowance for the circumstances such as potentially catastrophic effect of separation, the potentially unsatisfactory alternative care arrangements. The right to family life must also now be respected.
L Phillips of Worth Matravers, MR, Brooke, Hale LJJ
Times 01-Aug-2001, Gazette 06-Sep-2001, [2001] EWCA Civ 1151, [2001] 2 FLR 1122, [2001] UKHRR 1035, [2001] 1 WLR 2002, [2001] 3 FCR 416, [2001] Prison LR 297, [2001] Fam Law 803
Bailii
Prison Service Order No 4801, European Convention on Human Rights Art 8.2, Human Rights Act 1998 691)
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Regina v Qazi and Another CACD 4-Nov-2010
The defendant appealed against sentence, saying that given his serious medical condition, any imprisonment would threaten his human rights.
Held: The court set out the law. A court imposing a sentence should not concern itself with the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Prisons, Children, Human Rights, Family, Human Rights
Leading Case
Updated: 02 November 2021; Ref: scu.136152
