Court Report: Challenge to a local authority's care

This case centred on the question of whether the London Borough of Hillingdon was acting lawfully when it kept Steven Neary, a young man with disabilities, in its care for a year against his and his father's wishes. Though he was initially placed in respite care in December 2009 at his father's request, this was intended to be for a few days. But he was kept in the local authority's care unit until December 2010 on deprivation of liberty orders under the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

Justice Jackson found in favour of Steven Neary, arguing that the deprivation of liberty orders were unlawful as they were based on flawed assessments and that the borough had failed to carry out a genuine best interests assessment. The judge also pointed out that the local authority did not appear to have considered the possibility that Steven should be cared for at home by his family and that there may be disadvantages of his living away from home. Furthermore, the local authority failed to adequately respond to Steven's father's objections at the local authority keeping his son, and was made to believe that his actions opposing the deprivation of liberty orders would lead to a cessation of the care services that had been in place for his son at home.