Richardson v L C C
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE SELLERS,LORD JUSTICE DENNING |
| Judgment Date | 16 April 1957 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1957] EWCA Civ J0416-7 |
| Court | Court of Appeal |
| Date | 16 April 1957 |
[1957] EWCA Civ J0416-7
Lord Justice Denning,
Lord Justice Farker and
Lord Justice Sellers.
In The Supreme Court of Judicature
Court of Appeal
Mr JOHN THOMPSON. Q.C. and Mr J.F.F. PLATTS-MILLS (instructed by Mr Robert K. George) appeared on behalf of the Applicant.
Mr F.H. LAWTON (instructed by Mr J.G. Barr) appeared on behalf of the London County Council.
Mr JOHN G. WILMERS (instructed by Mr Kenneth Goodacre) appeared on behalf of the Middlesex County Council.
The SOLICITOR-GENERAL(Sir Harry Hylton-Foster, Q,.C.) and Mr RODGER WINN (instructed by the Solicitor, Ministry of Health) appeared on behalf of the Board of Control.
: Mr Ralph Edward Gosselin Richardson is now 53 years of age and he has been in an institution of one kind or another ever since 1925, as being a feeble-minded person under the Mental Defective Acts. After 30 years he was released, and now he seeks to bring an action in the Courts against the public authorities, on the ground that his detention was unlawful. It has been provided by Parliament that an action of such a kind is not to be allowed to proceed unless the person bringing it first gets the leave of the High Court. The Mental Treatment Act of 1930, Section 16, says that leave shall not be given "unless the court is satisfied that there is substantial ground for the contention that the person, against whom it is sought to bring the proceedings, has acted in bad faith or without reasonable care". The Judge below was not satisfied that there was any substantial ground for such a contention against the London County Council or the Middlesex County Council, but he held there was such a ground against the Board of Control. We have to consider here Mr Richardson's appeal seeking leave to proceed against the London County Council and the Middlesex County Council, and the cross-appeal of the Board of Control saying that leave ought not to be granted to proceed against them.
Mr Richardson was born in India on the 17th February, 1904. His father was an officer in the Indian Police, and his mother was out there with her husband. He came to England when he was four years old. He was in a preparatory school here and in public schools, and when he was 18 he passed the Oxford Senior Local Examination with honours in French; but not long afterwards he seems to have had a breakdown. He became very difficult and from the 23rd May, 1923, until January 1925 he was placed by his parents in an approved home which was run by a Dr Harry Corner Then, shortly before he was 21, on the 9th January 1925, he was sent to work, as a trial, on a poultry farm at Heathfield in Sussex. He did not stay there long. On the 28th January – that is under three weeks – his mother took him away. It is recorded that he had been threatening violence to the farmer with whom he worked and the farmer said he was quite unmanageable. His mother brought him to London. She had no piece to take him, because she herself was only in lodgings; so she took him temporarily to relatives in a flat. We do not know how welcome he was with those relatives, but within two days it became urgent to find other accommodation for him. The boy's uncle apparently came up from Ringwood, and went with the mother and the boy to the London County Council. They were accompanied also by Dr Corner who had had him in the approved home for the previous eighteen months. Dr Corner told the London County Council that the boy was entirely beyond the control of his parents and that two doctors were prepared to certify him as mental defective. Mrs Richardson, the mother, was anxious that the lad should be put under immediate restraint pending the completion of private arrangements for his reception into a proper institution. He was examined by the medical officer of the London County Council. The outcome of that talk and examination was that the London County Council, through their officers, took him to what is called "a place of safety", the St. Mary Abbott's Hospital. In so doing, they purported to act under the authority of Act of Parliament, Section 15 of the Mental Deficiency Act, 1913, which says: "If any officer of the local authority authorized in that behalf or any constable finds neglected, abandoned, or without visible means of support or cruelly treated any person whom he has reasonable cause to believe to be a defective, he may take such person to a place of safety, end such person may be there detained until a petition under this Act can be presented". So, acting under that section, he was taken to St. Mary Abbott's Hospital, within a few days, a petition was presented, as the Act required, to a judicial authority asking that steps should be taken in respect of this boy; and the petition was made by the mother. She presented it, asking that an Order might be made for sending him to Normans field in Middlesex. That is a certified home which had been approved by the authorities for the reception of mental defectives where she, the mother, would have to pay for him. Her petition was supported by a certificate by Sir Maurice Craig, a specialist in these matters, and by Dr Corner, both of whom gave full details of their reasons for believing him to be a mental defective.
That petition being made and so supported, the case came before the judicial authority, a specially appointed Magistrate, and he, after hearing the matter, made an Order in apparently proper form, finding that Mr Richardson "is a feebleminded person, is a defective within the meaning of the Mental Deficiency Act, and is subject to be dealt with under the Act by reason of the following circumstances: by reason of being neglected and not under proper care end control". That Order was made on the 11th February, 1925, and by virtue of it Mr Richardson was taken from the St. Mary Abbott's Hospital, the place of safety, to Normans field, a paying home, inhere he remained, his mother presumably being responsible for the cost of his maintenance in that home. Shortly after he went to Normans field, he became 21, and thereupon under a statutory provision in that behalf his case was reconsidered. It was reconsidered on the 24th March, 1925, by three visitors; and it appears that there were also present Sir Maurice Craig, Mr Langdon-Down (the doctor from Normans field), Dr Corner (the doctor who had had him at the approved home beforehand), Mrs Richardson's Solicitors, the mother's Solicitors, and a Solicitor representing Mr Richardson, the alleged defective. From such records as there are, it appears that all of then were of opinion that he was mentally defective, save one Visitor who recorded an opinion the other way. In the result, seeing that there was not an unanimous opinion of the Visitors in favour of his discharge, he continued to be detained at Normans field. A little later his father died. His mother was left without means and could not pay for him at Normans field any longer. Accordingly, steps were taken to get him transferred to an institution where the local authority would pay for him. Before that happened, he escaped from Normans field and wee found two days later as he was coming out of Ripon Cathedral. He was taken back, not to Normans field, but to an institution at Brantford, when arrangements could be made for the local authority to pay for him. He was kept in that institution for a few months. During that time he applied for a Poor Person's Certificate, under the old Poor Persons Rules, to bring an action before the Court, and a Solicitor wrote a few letters on his behalf, but did not carry it further. Ultimately, on the 2nd October 1925, the Roard of Control made an Order that he was of dangerous propensities and he was removed to the Rampton Institution. He remained there, or in other institutions, until the year 1954, when he was released.
Such being his history, he seeks to bring an action complaining that from the beginning his detention was unlawful. To do this, he has to satisfy the Court that there are substantial grounds for the contention that there was had faith or want of reasonable care. I will fro through the principal contentions. The first complaint is of the conduct of the London County Council on the 30th January, 1925. On that day his mother, with his uncle and a doctor, took him along to the London County Council. The officers of the London County Council said they found him neglected and had reasonable cause to believe him to be a defective and so took him to a place of safety. On behalf of Mr Richardson It is contended there was no possible justification for the suggestion that he was "found neglected" and that there must have been a want of reasonable care at least on the part of the London County Council: and that there might even have been bad faith, in that they may have realized that it was doubtful whether they had any power in law to detain him, but nevertheless, in order to support the mother's wishes, they took a chance on it and found him "neglected" when he was not so in fact.
I cannot help thinking that that contention only sees the light of day because of the decision of the Divisional Court last year in The Queen v. Board of Control. Ex parte Rutty, in 1956 2 Queen's Bench at page 109, where that Court said that the words "found neglected" strongly suggested that the defective must be found through neglect in some degree of distress; that the word "neglected" must be construed as meaning physically suffering from a lack of essentials through want of reasonable care. Applying that case, it is said that this youth was not in the least "neglected" or "found neglected". He was being paid for by his mother; he was taken along in the care of his...
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