High Court finds disabled adults placed in English hospital to be habitually resident

In Re DB EWCOP 30, Mr Justice Baker, a High Court Judge sitting in the Court of Protection, considered whether two severely learning disabled adults who had been placed in an English hospital by Scottish local authorities had become habitually resident in England and Wales.

DB was placed there in 2008 and initially required two members of staff exclusively devoted to his care. EC entered the hospital in 2010. The judge records that he has “a history of serious violent and abnormal aggressive and self-injurious behaviour, including charging behaviour in which he runs at speed towards other people.”

The Official Solicitor to the Senior Courts, who represents incapacitated adults in the Court of Protection, argued that seclusion in a hospital prevented the adults from being sufficiently integrated into the community to become habitually resident in England and Wales. The judge accepted submissions on behalf of the local authorities that the passage of time together with their integration within the hospital where sufficient to amount to habitual residence.

The court will determine the legal framework necessary to transfer DB back to Scotland later this month.

The Scottish local authorities were represented by Alan Inglis of Arnot Manderson Advocates. He is the only specialist family and mental health law Counsel exercising rights of audience in both Scotland and in England and Wales.