Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS Trust v SC & Anor [2024] EWCOP 69 (T3)

Best interests decision concerning a pregnant 37 year old and whether she should give birth via a c-section against her will.

SC has had two C-sections before and had also been detained under the MHA in 2019 and 2021 before being detained again in October suffering from mania and psychosis.  An ultrasound while in detention found her unborn child was not growing so it was decided she should have a planned delivery. SC, in a meeting with a representative from the OS who was representing her, said she did not want a C-section this time but also thought her scans had revealed she had four babies in her womb.

Cusworth J, after reviewing the law on best interest, notes the recent decision of King LG in Hemachandran v Thirumalesh [2024] EWCA Civ 896 where she stated

‘an absence of belief may but not inevitably will, on the facts of a particular case, lead to a clinician or a court to conclude that the functional test in section 3(1) is not satisfied and that the person in question does not have the ability to make the decision in question’.

Accordingly, he concludes SC is unable to make ​the decision, especially given its urgency, and grants the declarations that delivery  C-section is in SC's best interests.

Read the judgment on the National Archive