The Public Guardian v VT
2014
COURT OF PROTECTION
United Kingdom
CORAM
- SENIOR JUDGE LUSH
Areas of Law
- Family Law
- Mental Health Law
- Trust Law
2014
COURT OF PROTECTION
United Kingdom
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The case involved the revocation of an LPA for property and financial affairs held by VT for PST, her mentally ill mother. Concerns were raised about VT's management of PST's financial affairs and care. The provisions in the LPA attempting to restrict public authority intervention were deemed contrary to public policy. The court revoked the LPA, directed its cancellation, and appointed a new deputy for PST's affairs.
JUDGMENT
Senior Judge Lush:
This is an application by the Public Guardian for the court to revoke a Lasting Power of Attorney (‘LPA’) for property and financial affairs on the ground that the donee of the power has behaved in a way that contravenes her authority or is not in the donor’s best interests.
The background
The donor, PST, was born in 1934 in what is now Sri Lanka but was then Ceylon. She used to teach English.
She has chronic paranoid schizophrenia and for the last six years has been compulsorily detained in various hospitals in the Home Counties under the Mental Health Act 1983. She is currently in a secure unit in Hertfordshire.
Her daughter, VT, was born in 1958, and lives in Maidenhead. She has BSc and MSc degrees in biochemistry and immunology, but has been unemployed on a long-term basis.
On 21 February 2010 PST executed an LPA for property and financial affairs and an LPA for health and welfare, in which she appointed her daughter to be her sole attorney and a male cousin, who was born in 1932 and lives in Sri Lanka, to be the replacement attorney.
The LPAs were drafted by her daughter and PST’s capacity to create them was assessed and certified by a former work colleague who had known her for over thirty years.
When I say that the LPAs were drafted by her daughter, I mean that VT inserted a number of restrictions and conditions and guidance notes into the standard prescribed forms. For example, in the LPA for health and welfare, one of the wishes that PST purported to express in the guidance section was that “I want to live within 10 miles of my daughter’s home if ever I need hospital treatment.”
The LPA for property and financial affairs contained the following condition:
“I do not want any public authority or body or their employees or contractors to handle my money, financial affairs or property at any time and I do not want them to obtain any information about these at any time.”
On reflection, this provision should have been severed from the LPA before it was registered, because it is ineffective as part of an LPA. I shall return to this later at paragraphs 34 to 37.
An application was made to the Office of the Public Guardian (‘OPG’) to register the LPAs and they were registered on 24 August 2011.
The OPG’s investigation
On 22 October 2012 Windsor & Maidenhead Community Mental Health Team contacted the OPG to express their concerns about the attorney’s behaviour. She had failed to provide her mother with toiletries a