Hywel Dda University Health Board v P & Anor [2024] EWCOP 70 (T3)

Judgment concerning P and whether she should be removed from her family home for assessment

P is nearly 19 and has a diagnosis of ASD. She lives with her mother, ZJ, with two other family members. They fled to West Wales fourteen years ago from England. At home P has been subject to restrictions placed by her mother to prevent P from harming herself. These proceedings had been held in private without the involvement of ZJ (and P for this application) partly because the Trust thought there was a flight risk. The Trust was seeking orders under the inherent jurisdiction of the court to remove P in order to secure an assessment. The Litigation Friend representing P opposed the application on the grounds that, while P a is vulnerable adult for whom the inherent jurisdiction may be invoked, any intervention should not only be as intrusive as necessary to mitigate the flight risk and any order which removes P from her home should not be approved without evidence of her wishes and feelings. 

Morgan J broadly agrees with the view of the Litigation Friend but played down the flight risk as circumstances had changed since the previous incident. She grants injunctive relief and approves an order which "enables entry and access to P for assessment purposes at the home and prevention of her removal from that address by her mother or by others on the instruction of her mother."  

Read the judgment on Bailii