R (M) v Gateshead Metropolitan Borough Council
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 14 March 2006 |
| Date | 14 March 2006 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
COURT OF APPEAL
Before Lord Justice Thorpe, Lord Justice Dyson and Lord Justice Moore-Bick
ANY LOCAL authority receiving a request to accommodate a child in police detention had to do so irrespective of the area the child came from.
The Court of Appeal so held in a reserved judgment dismissing an appeal brought by M against the refusal by Mr Justice Calvert-Smith to grant permission to apply for judicial review of the failure of Gateshead Metropolitan Borough Council to provide her with secure accommodation, following her arrest on a charge of wounding with intent.
Mr Stephen Cragg for M; Mr Ian Kennerley for Gateshead.
LORD JUSTICE DYSON said that the proceedings were concerned with what duty, if any, was owed by local authorities to provide secure accommodation for arrested juveniles whom they were requested to receive under section 38(6) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984.
"Secure accommodation" was "accommodation provided for the purpose of restricting liberty": see section 25(1) of the Children Act 1989 and section 38(6A) of the 1984 Act, as inserted by section 59 of the Criminal Justice Act 1991.
M was born on August 16, 1988. The local authority never had parental responsibility for her. At one time, she lived with her mother in Gateshead.
Then, at the request of her mother, she was voluntarily accommodated by the authority for periods during 2004 until her sixteenth birthday when she discharged herself and began to live independently.
She was living in a hostel in Sunderland when she was arrested for alleged wounding with intent, contrary to section 18 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861. She was detained at a police station in Sunderland and a Sunderland social worker was called by the police to act as her appropriate adult for the purposes of the interviews that were to take place.
The social worker contacted Gateshead Council's emergency team to try to find an address to which M could be bailed. The police asked whether the council could provide secure accommodation until M was produced before Sunderland Magistrates later that day.
Gateshead were unable to arrange secure accommodation and since the police were of the view that nothing less than secure accommodation would suffice, M was detained overnight at the police station.
M sought to challenge the failure of the Gateshead Council to provide her with secure...
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