A Local Authority v M
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Cobb |
| Judgment Date | 22 July 2021 |
| Neutral Citation | [2021] EWHC 2066 (Fam) |
| Court | Family Division |
| Docket Number | Case No: FD21P00173 |
[2021] EWHC 2066 (Fam)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
FAMILY DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
THE HONOURABLE Mr Justice Cobb
Case No: FD21P00173
Ms Elizabeth O'Donnell (of the Local Authority solicitor's department) for the Local Authority
Ms Sheila Phil-Ebosie (instructed by All Family Matters) for the First Respondent mother (M)
Ms Nilouka Peiris (of Lawrence & Co. Solicitors) for the Children's Guardian for G
Mr Jonathan Auburn QC (instructed by Government Legal Department, Treasury Solicitor) for the Secretary of State for Education
Ms Beatrice Longmore from the office of the Children's Commissioner
Hearing dates: 21 July 2021
Approved Judgment
I direct that no official shorthand note shall be taken of this Judgment and that copies of this version as handed down may be treated as authentic.
THE HONOURABLE Mr Justice Cobb
This judgment was delivered in public. The judge has given leave for this version of the judgment to be published on condition that (irrespective of what is contained in the judgment) in any published version of the judgment the anonymity of the children and members of their family must be strictly preserved. All persons, including representatives of the media, must ensure that this condition is strictly complied with. Failure to do so will be a contempt of court.
Introduction and Summary
G is 15 years old. He has had an extremely troubled and traumatic childhood. He is believed to have experienced, and/or been exposed to, domestic abuse within the family home. He has been routinely absconding from home since he was about 11 years old. He has been out of the education system for about two years. He has considerable experience of the criminal justice system, and is known to have been involved in serious offending over a period of time; he has a number of criminal convictions and cautions. He has affiliations with known gangs, and is recognised by the National Referral Mechanism as a victim of criminal exploitation. There are concerns about his mental health; he has been referred to CAMHS and psychotherapy is planned for him. For some of this year he has been on remand in custody awaiting trial on drugs charges. He has recently been acquitted of those charges.
Reliable intelligence reveals that there is a serious and credible threat to his life; an ‘ Osman’ 1 warning has been issued to him by the police. This is a warning of a death threat or risk of murder, issued by the British police or authorities to a prospective victim; the police have not, so far as I know, offered him a safe house. He is currently living at home with his mother and his younger siblings. It goes without saying – but I shall say it for emphasis – that he is plainly extremely vulnerable in this situation, and, on the information presented to the court, I am satisfied that his life is in real and immediate danger.
The Local Authority for the area in which G lives considers that G needs to be in secure accommodation, or otherwise in a highly protected environment where he can be shielded from harm, and which will reduce the risks to himself and others in the community. The Local Authority considers that there are grounds on which it can and should acquire parental responsibility for G under Part IV of the Children Act 1989 (‘the 1989 Act’) and have applied for an interim care order.
The application for an interim care order is accompanied by an application for a secure accommodation order ( section 25 of the 1989 Act); both applications were made on 15 July and listed before Peel J on the following day. He gave directions and adjourned the applications for a short time; the parties attended as directed on 21 July (yesterday) for further directions and consideration of interim substantive orders. The Local Authority however came to court submitting that it does not feel able to pursue the applications at present, because it cannot identify a safe or secure placement for G, and
it feels that it cannot effectively exercise any parental responsibility for G while he remains living at homeThe Local Authority advises me, and on the documents I confirm that I am satisfied, that it has been looking for a placement for G since April 2021. It has made enquiries of more than 250 establishments in England and in Scotland. It has approached the hub known as the Secure Welfare Coordination Unit which administers secure placements around the country. It has had no success; there are currently 53 young people referred to that unit and only 1 bed showing as available on the system for a male young person. There are, ostensibly, no other placements available for G or a young person such as G.
The Local Authority has considered whether it can create a bespoke secure or protected placement for G in accordance with its duties under section 22C(5) / section 22C(6)(d) (“placement in accordance with other arrangements”) and section 22D(2); such a placement would, it is apprehended, need to be buttressed by court-authorised arrangements to deprive G – at least in certain respects – of his liberty. However, it does not advance this proposal at this stage for two reasons:
i) Such a bespoke placement would require the identification of a suitable placement/property and the employment of four trained workers per shift (probably over thirty trained workers assigned to the placement). The Local Authority does not feel able to put together such a placement in a short space of time to accommodate G as an emergency alternative to a secure placement;
ii) A bespoke placement such as that outlined above would not in any event be regulated; such a placement would, within the next few weeks, become unlawful (see §11 below). Such a placement has therefore not been approved by the Director of Children's Services for the relevant Local Authority.
Currently therefore G remains in the community, at home, and obviously at considerable risk. At the hearing, I have directed the Local Authority to prepare a statement urgently setting out in detail its proposals to try to keep G safe while he is at home, given its duties to...
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Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council v AM
...associations. On 22 July 2021, in a decision published as Re G (Young Person: Threat to Life: Unavailability of Secure Placement) [2021] EWHC 2066 (Fam), Cobb J found that there is reliable intelligence that there is a serious and credible threat to BM's life. On 25 August 2021, Cobb J mad......