A youth court remanded the appellant to a local authority with a requirement that the local authority detain him in secure accommodation. No such accommodation was however available. He was brought back to the Youth Court by a member of the youth offending team but he then absconded. He was later convicted of escape. An appeal by way of case stated contended that there was no evidence upon which the justices could properly find that he was in lawful custody. This issue was held to be a question of fact: ‘Custody was an English word which should be given its ordinary and natural meaning namely ‘confinement, imprisonment, durance’ subject to any special meaning given to it by statute. For a person to be in custody his liberty had to be subject to such constraint or restriction that he could be said to be confined by another in the sense that the person’s immediate freedom of movement was under the direct control of another . .’
As regards the constraints involved on the facts, and the defendant’s knowledge of them, the report goes on: ‘The order made by the justices in the present case whereby the appellant was remanded was custodial in nature not only did it remand him into the care of the local authority but it also required that he be placed in secure accommodation. Such a remand was so restrictive of the appellant’s liberty that it could properly be said to be custodial in nature. The lawfulness of the regime which was thereafter applied to the Appellant in the period of remand was established by that order. The appellant was at all times fully aware of that fact. . . ‘
Judges:
Forbes J
Citations:
[2002] EWHC 433 (Admin), [2002] Crim LR 737
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Dhillon, Regina v CACD 23-Nov-2005
The defendant had been arrested and then taken to hospital for treatment. On completion of his treatment, he could not find the constable, so went home. He now appealed from conviction of escape contrary to common law.
Held: The prosecution . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Crime
Updated: 23 November 2022; Ref: scu.241516