Shameful Lack of Secure Placement
The lack of appropriate placements for highly vulnerable children and adolescents identified in recent case law was described as long ago as 2017 as both disgraceful and utterly shaming.[1]
It is evident from a judgment delivered today by Knowles J that despite grave concerns having been raised at the highest level on numerous occasions this appalling blot on society exists to this day: Q (A Child) (DOLS: Lack of Secure Placement) [2021] EWHC 123 (Fam).
Q, who will be 17 next month, was taken into police protection at the age of two together with his younger sister, having been found in circumstances of severe neglect.
He was taken into the care of the local authority and was subsequently adopted with his sister when he was three years old.
His adoptive parents reported developmental delay consistent with neglect and Q’s behaviour at home and school was extremely challenging.
At the age of eight Q was referred to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services and was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder for which he still receives medication.
Since the age of four, Q has engaged in harmful and violent behaviours with others, both male and female, to the extent that when he was 10 his adoptive mother asked for him to be accommodated by the local authority.
He was thereafter placed with foster carers. That placement broke down because of his aggression and threats to other children, concerns that he was prepared to set fires, and alleged abuse of the family pet.
It is quite unnecessary in this short article to set out the history in the intervening years save to say serious and harmful behaviours persisted and grew.
The application before the court was for a secure accommodation order and, in the event that a suitable placement in secure accommodation could not be found, for an order under the inherent jurisdiction to deprive Q of his liberty.
Her Honour Judge Harris previously had conduct of the case but such was her concern about Q’s situation that she reallocated the case to Knowles J in his capacity as Family Division Liaison Judge for the Midlands.
Since then the case has been raised at ministerial level and, in December last, the local authority received a letter from the Secretary of State for Education indicating his concern on learning of Q’s circumstances.
Q was currently in a secure environment and the Youth Offending Service considered that any long-term changes in his thinking and behaviour were unlikely given the limitations of his current environment.
Today a placement in secure accommodation was not available and the court was satisfied that the inherent jurisdiction therefore remained available to the court because the criteria pursuant to s.25 Children Act 1989 could not be met.
The absence of available secure accommodation did not lead to the structure imposed by s.25 being avoided.
Q was a person in the care of the local authority. There could be no doubt that he met the criteria in s.25(1) for the making of a secure accommodation order.
He had a history of absconding and would be likely to abscond from any other accommodation.
If he were kept in any other description of accommodation, he was likely to injure himself or other persons in that he was a real danger to carers, other occupants of placement, himself and the wider public.
Q was being failed by the care system given the inability to locate a suitable secure placement in which he could receive the intensive therapeutic work which he so plainly and urgently needed.
If he did not receive it soon, he would be a huge risk to young children and others. The nature of his likely offending behaviour also placed him at risk of being a victim of serious harm, both in the community and in custody.
Through no fault of his own, Q was a profoundly damaged young person who desperately needed care and help.
The window of opportunity to tackle and address his difficulties was running out since he would be 18 years old in just over a year’s time.
At that point, no order that this court could make would prevent him from leaving a placement and living in the community where he would be a significant risk of harm himself and where he would present a significant danger to others.
Knowles J directed that copies of his judgment be sent to the Children’s Commissioner for England, to the Secretary of State for Education, to the Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor, and to others.
In addition, having not yet abandoned hope that a suitable secure welfare placement might be available for Q, the judge invited the Secretary of State for Education to attend the next hearing and be represented by counsel.
[1] Re X (A Child)(No 3) [2017] EWHC 2036 per Sir James Munby, President