The case concerned a boy aged eight at the material time, both of whose parents had severe mental health problems. Very shortly after he had been returned to his mother’s care when she came out of hospital, she suffered a relapse and called an ambulance, leaving the child with a neighbour. A social worker was called and decided that neither the neighbour nor the paternal grandparents were suitable and so the child should be accommodated. The following day the mother was compulsorily admitted (‘sectioned’) under section 2 of the Mental Health Act 1983. There were doubts about her capacity, which fluctuated, and her consent to the accommodation was never obtained. Care proceedings were not issued until a month later. Judge Rowe QC cited the requirement in both the G and the Coventry cases that, in the absence of parental agreement, a child could only be removed under an interim care order, emergency protection order or into police protection. She commented, at para 29:
‘Section 20(1)(c) contains no requirement for the threshold criteria under section 31(2) of the Children Act 1989 to be satisfied on any basis, even reasonable cause. If [counsel] were correct, then a local authority could, on its own assessment of whether a parent was prevented from ‘providing a child with suitable care’, remove that child without any reference at all to the threshold criteria. The parents would have no forum in which to contest that assessment, and there is no application open to them under the provisions of the 1989 Act to challenge the local authority and seek the return of their child. The child would have no children’s guardian. There would be no parameters for the position after removal, there would be no requirement for the local authority to apply to court and there would be no time limit on the duration of the removal. In short there would be no safeguards to mirror those that are expressly included in sections 38, 44 and 46. It would seem perverse if a local authority could more easily remove children from their parents in cases where the threshold criteria were not necessarily met than in cases where there were reasonable grounds to conclude that they were met.’
Damages of pounds 3,000 were awarded to the mother on the ground, as in this case, that the removal was not ‘in accordance with the law’.
HHJ Rowe QC
[2015] EWFC B150
Bailii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Williams and Another v London Borough of Hackney SC 18-Jul-2018
On arrest for shoplifting a 12 year old said he had been doing so to get food, and that he had been hit with a belt by his father. Investigation revealed the home to be dangerous, and all eight children were removed to the care of the LA. The . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 07 August 2021; Ref: scu.553948
