Ahmed v Leicester City Council
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | SIR PAUL KENNEDY,Lord Justice Pill,Lady Justice Arden |
| Judgment Date | 27 June 2007 |
| Neutral Citation | [2007] EWCA Civ 186,[2007] EWCA Civ 843 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Date | 27 June 2007 |
| Docket Number | B2/2006/2234,Case No: B5/2006/2234 |
[2007] EWCA Civ 186
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM NORTHAMPTON COUNTY COURT
(His Honour Judge Mayor QC)
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand London, WC2
Sir Paul Kennedy
B2/2006/2234
MR A ARDEN QC & MR D PRESTON (instructed by Shelter Housing Aid & Research Project) appeared on behalf of the Appellant.
THE RESPONDENT DID NOT APPEAR AND WAS NOT REPRESENTED.
This is a renewed application for permission to appeal from a decision of HHJ Mayor sitting in the Northampton County Court on 8 September 2006. On 30 December 2004 this appellant applied to Leicester City Council, contending that she was homeless. The city council accepted that she was in priority need and that she was not intentionally homeless, and that the authority therefore owed her a full duty to house her.
On 16 August 2005 the authority offered her accommodation at 25 Limber Crescent. They made it clear that that would be their final offer. That address was in the North Braunstone area of Leicester. The appellant visited the property and found it was in good condition, but a neighbour who she met there said to her that if she accepted it there would be trouble, or words to that effect, and when she went back a few days later she found that the property had been vandalised. For present purposes it is unnecessary to go into detail as to the nature of the vandalism, but it was extensive. Furthermore, there were three men who made it clear that in their judgment it would not be the right area for her and that on the next occasion they would burn it down. It is not clear from the papers before me whether the men were white, but she is a Somali.
On 16 September 2005 she advised the local authority that she was not prepared to accept that property. On 29 September the authority advised her that they considered their duty under the 1996 Housing Act to have been discharged. She then, if not before, sought legal advice and her solicitor, on 20 October 2005, sought a review of the authority's decision. The letter seeking the review set out her position, and also three statements were offered from other residents in the area, setting out the nuisance and racial abuse and damage which they, as Somalis, had experienced living there or thereabouts. One of the statements was from a woman named Maryam Abdi.
On 28 April 2006, the authority advised the appellant that they had reviewed the original decision and upheld it. They contended that it was reasonable for her to have accepted the property offered because although the residents of Braunstone did suffer some degree of violence, it was not so unsuitable as to make it inappropriate for her to live there. They pointed out that they had not obtained authority, though they sought it, from the solicitor acting on behalf of the appellant, Ms Abdi. That was because, as the solicitor made clear, that lady had not responded to his attempt to get authority from her. The local authority dealt with that matter in their letter of 28 April 2006, saying:
“You were not in a position to provide me with authorisation from Ms Abdi. therefore I am not able to consider specifically the issues that she has raised.”
It is unnecessary for present purposes to go into the detail of that letter any further, but the submission made on behalf of this appellant by Mr Arden this morning is that the position in which the appellant then was, was one which should have been recognised by the local authority as broadly speaking, reasonable. First of all the authority should not have simply swept aside the evidence, or the possible evidence, from Ms Abdi. It would have been perfectly capable of making enquiries with the police and its own local authority sources without her express permission, and secondly, and more importantly, the appellant herself, in the decision which she made on 16 September 2005 was, looking at the matter having regard to her probable state of mind, behaving entirely reasonably. In that context it is important to remember that this woman was a woman in her mid-thirties with young children, who had herself been the victim of domestic abuse, and as to that there is no possible ground for argument because she had obtained an injunction against her former husband or partner.
That led to an appeal from the local authority's decision under the statutory provisions to the County Court and that is how the matter came before Judge Mayor at Northampton on 8 September 2006. The learned judge upheld the decision of the local authority in forthright terms. I, for my part, consider that there is considerable force in the third ground of appeal which is now advanced. In that ground it is contended on behalf of the appellant that the local authority was wrong to come to the conclusion that when she refused this property she was behaving unreasonably, and that the reason that both the local authority and the learned judge were wrong was because they failed to look at the matter, giving proper weight to her subjective approach, a matter to which proper weight should be given, if one has regard to the authority of this court, in Slater v Lewisham LBC [2006] EWCA Civ 394.
That seems to me to be a ground of appeal which has real prospects of success, and I therefore give leave to appeal on that ground. For my part I would not give leave to appeal on any other ground. This is a second-tier appeal, and therefore leave should not be given unless there is an important point of principle or practice or some other compelling reason why the court should hear the appeal.
I accept, of course, that this is not what one might regard as a normal category of second-tier appeal because there has been only one judicial decision thus far, and Brooke LJ drew some distinction along those lines in Rainbow Phillips v London Borough of Camden [2005] EWCA Civ, indicating that the court might be somewhat more lenient in this type of case. Bearing in mind that it is a second-tier appeal, I for my part would not be prepared to grant permission to appeal in relation to the first ground of appeal, which focuses on the way in which the local authority dealt with the evidence of Ms Abdi—or perhaps I should say, failed to deal with the information which they could have obtained in relation to her complaints.
It may be attributable to a misunderstanding of the Data Protection Act, but it seems to me that in the context of this case, what could have been obtained from that line of enquiry would have made little or no difference to the outcome of the matter overall. Ground 2 effectively goes with Ground 1 and Ground 3 effectively goes with Ground 4. So, in so far as Ground 3 assists Mr Arden's argument hereafter, he has leave to argue it. If he wishes to argue either Ground 1 or Ground 2, and as I have indicated, they go together, he must seek permission from the full court when the matter is heard.
Order: Application granted in Part.
[2007] EWCA Civ 843
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM NORTHAMPTON COUNTY COURT
(HIS HONOUR JUDGE MAYOR QC)
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Lord Justice Pill
Lady Justice Arden and
Lord Justice Collins
Case No: B5/2006/2234
MR D PRESTON (instructed by Messrs Shelter Housing Aid and Research Project) appeared on behalf of the Appellant.
MR D CARTER & MS L JOHNSON (instructed by Messrs Head of Legal Services, Leicester City Council) appeared on behalf of the Respondent.
This is an appeal against a judgment of HHJ Mayor QC given at Northampton County Court on 8 September 2006. An appeal to that court by Ms Anna Ahmed (“the appellant”) under section 204 of the Housing Act 1996 (“the 1996 Act”) against a decision of Leicester City Council (“the Respondents”) was dismissed by the judge and this is an appeal against that decision. Permission to appeal to this court was refused on a consideration of the papers by Neuberger LJ but was granted by Sir Paul Kennedy following an oral hearing. The respondents owned the appellant a duty under section 193 of the 1996 Act; that is the duty to persons with priority need who are not homeless intentionally. By letter dated 16 August 2005, the respondents offered her accommodation at 25 Limber Crescent, Leicester, a four-bedroomed house in North Braunstone. It was intended to be a final offer of accommodation within the meaning of section 193(7) of the Act. After her first visit to the premises the appellant on 17 August 2005 signed a pro forma document which stated, “I am interested in this property and would like it reserved for me”. However, she revisited the premises in circumstances which will be described and, having been interviewed by a representative of the respondents, the appellant refused the offer on 16 September 2005.
By letter dated 29 September 2005 the respondents told the appellant that, following the refusal, their statutory duty to the appellant was discharged. On 20 October the appellant exercised her right under section 202 of the 1996 Act to request a review of that decision. The request was made in a detailed letter from her solicitor. In an equally detailed letter dated 28 April 2006 the reviewing officer stated that the accommodation was:
“A suitable offer of...
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