SCC v FP & Ors [2022] EWCOP 30

Judgment concerning whether it is in the best interests of a vulnerable 36 year old woman, FP to be deprived of direct contact with her mother. FP lacks capacity to make decisions about residence, care, and contact with others.

FP has been diagnosed as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, experiencing auditory hallucinations including that people were going to kill her and to harvest her internal organs. She has been in and out of hospital over the past few years and since November 2021 has been living at her current care home, placement 3. FP’s schizophrenia has been resistant to treatment. She requires care 24 hours a day. She continues to suffer from delusions and will have episodes of screaming. FP’s mother, RT, had been criticised in earlier proceedings over her behaviour to care workers and attempts to control FP’s care, while also lacking a basic understanding of the impact of FP’s mental disorder. 

At this final hearing, the applicant was seeking an order for reduced contact between FP and RT - no face to face contact for an interim period of just over five months, and telephone contact once every three weeks - and restrictions on communications between RT and the placement and professionals. Mr Justice Poole reviews the witnesses before him, including the behaviour of RT in the witness box, and concludes that 

“it is contrary to FP’s best interests for face to face contact with RT to continue over the next few months. Whilst FP has said that she enjoys seeing her mother, the overwhelming balance of the evidence is that it is currently harmful to her.”

He also states at [34] that “RT is labouring under an irrational and unjustifiable belief that FP is a victim of a conspiracy of professionals to harm her. This belief is entrenched.”

Read the full judgment