Re C (A Minor) (Medical treatment: Court's jurisdiction)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 05 March 1997 |
| Date | 05 March 1997 |
| Court | Family Division |
Family Division
Before Mr Justice Wall
Children - medical treatment - power to order detention
A clinic whose primary purpose was to provide treatment for eating disorders was not "secure accommodation" within the meaning of section 25 of the Children Act 1989; accordingly that section, which regulated the placement and retention of minors in secure accommodation, did not operate to fetter the court's inherent jurisdiction to make orders in a child's best interests, and therefore the court had power to direct that the child should be detained as an in-patient at the clinic for the purposes of medical treatment, using reasonable force if necessary.
Mr Justice Wall so held in the Family Division in a reserved judgment handed down in chambers and reported with leave of the judge when granting an application by the local authority for an order made pursuant to the High Court's inherent jurisdiction to detain a child aged 16 in a clinic so that the child could be treated for an eating disorder.
Miss Alison Ball, QC, for the local authority; Mr Roderic Wood, QC, for the child; Mr David G P Turner for the parents; Mr James Munby, QC, as amicus curiae.
MR JUSTICE WALL said that the child was suffering from anorexia nervosa and had a history of absconding from the clinic. The local authority did not wish to apply for a care order for good reasons.
Even though the child maintained she was in agreement with the treatment she was receiving and that there was no need for an order, the clinic was now only prepared to accept her back under either a care order or as a ward of court.
The question was whether the court, exercising its inherent jurisdiction, had the power to detain a child aged 16 in a specified institution for the purposes of medical treatment.
In In re W (a Minor) (Medical treatment: Court's jurisdiction)ELR ([1993] Fam 64) was Court of Appeal authority for the proposition that the court's powers under its parens patriae jurisdiction were theoretically limitless and extended to authorising doctors to treat a minor in accordance with their clinical judgment.
Furthermore, two recent cases, Norfolk and Norwich Healthcare (NHS) Trust v WFLR ([1996] 2 FLR 613) and Rochdale Healthcare (NHS) Trust v CUNK ([1997] 1 FCR 274) had confirmed that the court had...
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...3 All E.R. 927. Re C. (a baby) [1996] 2 F.C.R. 569; [1996] 2 F.L.R. 43; (1996) 32 B.M.L.R. 44. Re C. (a minor) [1998] 1 F.C.R. 1; (1997) 40 B.M.L.R. 31. In re C. (Wardship: Medical Treatment) [1990] Fam. 26; [1989] 3 W.L.R. 240; [1989] 2 All E.R. 782. In re J. (a minor) [1993] Fam. 15; [199......