Introduction
This Part 8 CPR claim is brought under section 2 of the Guardianship (Missing Persons) Act 2017 (the ‘G(MP)A 2017’). It is dated 16 July 2024. It concerns the Defendant, a 50 year old man, Stephen Bartram (for shorthand hereafter, I shall refer to him as ‘SB’, but note this is not an anonymised judgment).
The Claimant is SB’s mother (the ‘Claimant’); she seeks a guardianship order, appointing her a Guardian in respect of all of SB’s property and financial affairs. She has been assisted at court by SB’s brother, Kevin Bartram. SB’s father is aware of the proceedings and has filed a witness statement; SB last saw his father, who lives abroad, in 2022. SB’s father plays no part in the proceedings.
SB suffers from mental ill-health, and has a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia; for some time, he has been supported by adult social care in the city in which he lived, Southend. He has suffered periodic relapses of his mental illness; on at least one occasion in the last few years he has attempted to take his own life. He has gone missing once before, about ten years ago, but only for about six weeks. He has also travelled abroad in the past, occasionally at times when he has been suffering from declining mental health, but during those periods has invariably kept in touch with the Claimant; complete cessation of contact is, I am told by the Claimant, “out of character”.
SB has not worked since 2022; he is in receipt of state benefits. He is not known to have ever used an alias, or alternative or substitute names. He was a regular church-goer in his locality, although the Claimant believes that “ increased religiosity is one of the symptoms of his illness”.
The Claimant last saw SB on 22 September 2023; at that time, SB was talking about going away, possibly to Scotland. He appears to have made no plans or preparations to leave his home (his washing was still hanging up in his flat when the police visited), although he had handed a box of possessions to the vicar of his local church (“the vicar”) on 18 September, indicating as he did so that he was planning to go away; he did not say where. A note in the police records indicates that mental health services in Essex spoke with SB on 26 September 2023, and that he had reported that he felt well. The police record separately refers also to the fact that mental health services saw SB on 26 September 2023. I believe that this reference to the mental health services ‘seeing’ SB must be an error. The C
