Wiltshire Council, R (On the Application Of) v Hertfordshire County Council
2014
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
United Kingdom
CORAM
- LORD JUSTICE MOSES
- MR JUSTICE BEAN
Areas of Law
- Administrative Law
- Health Law
2014
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
United Kingdom
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The case is a dispute between Wiltshire and Hertfordshire regarding responsibility for aftercare under section 117 of the Mental Health Act 1983 for SQ, who was detained under a hospital order in 1995 and discharged multiple times. The court held that the determination of SQ's residence, for the purposes of section 117, should exclude periods of detention and that Wiltshire remained the responsible authority.
Mr Justice Bean :
This case involves a dispute between two local authorities over who has responsibility under section 117 of the Mental Health Act 1983 (“the Act”) for the aftercare of a person, originally made the subject of a hospital order with restrictions by an order of the Crown Court, who has been conditionally discharged for the second time from detention at a hospital.
SQ, who was born on 23 rd March 1971, lived in Wiltshire until 1995. He has been almost continuously in contact with local authority psychiatric services since he was 18 years old.
On 4 th December 1995 in the Crown Court at Swindon he was made subject to a hospital order under section 37 of the Act with restrictions under section 41. He was detained under that order for more than 13 years, until 2003 in Hampshire and thereafter in Cambridgeshire. On 20 th November 2006 a Mental Health Review Tribunal, Judge Reynolds presiding, ordered that he should be conditionally discharged subject to conditions which included residence in a 24 hour staffed hostel approved by the Responsible Medical Officer and the Social Supervisor, but further directed that his discharge was to be deferred until the Tribunal was satisfied that the necessary arrangements had been made to meet those conditions. By a further decision on 7 th July 2008 the same Tribunal reached the same decision, that is to say a deferred conditional discharge.
On 19 th January 2009 the First Tier Tribunal (as it had by then become) directed a conditional discharge and noted that they were now satisfied that appropriate accommodation had been secured and that a consultant psychiatrist in the community and a social supervisor had been appointed. One of the conditions of his discharge was that SQ was “to reside at Winnett Cottage, Stevenage, or such other 24 hour staffed hostel as [may be] approved by the RMO and Social Supervisor”.
On 2nd March 2009 SQ was conditionally discharged from hospital to a placement at Winnett Cottage, Stevenage, Hertfordshire. He remained living there until 5 th September 2011, when he was recalled under section 42(3) of the Act by the Secretary of State and once again detained in a hospital, this time in Hertfordshire.
On 20 th February 2014 he was again conditionally discharged from hospital to Winnett Cottage. Before his discharge there had been correspondence between Wiltshire and Hertfordshire on the subject of which authority would owe him the duty to provide after-care services under sect