Legal Update: In a Nutshell - Court protects child from travel to Syria

The case, Y (A Minor: Wardship) [2015] EWHC 2098 (Fam), was a wardship application by Brighton & Hove City Council concerning a 16-year-old young man (‘Y’). A wardship order allows the High Court to be vested with the custody of a child for the child’s protection. While day-to-day care remains with an individual (in this case, a parent) or the local authority, the court’s consent is required for any important step in the child’s life, including, for example, any travel outside the UK.

What were the facts in this case?
According to the court, Y was a vulnerable young person, who had grown up in Britain in an extraordinary family, where male family members “were plainly committed to waging jihad in war-torn Syria.” Y’s two brothers had been killed in the civil war in Syria and a close family friend, who had lived with Y and his family, was also killed last year. His other brother had been seriously injured, but had continued to fight in Syria. Y’s uncle was a detainee at Guantanamo Bay detention centre. His case had attracted a lot of attention internationally, and was widely known in Y’s home town of Brighton.

What were the local authority’s reasons for bringing the application?
The local authority was concerned that Y may wish to follow in the path of his brothers, and that his mother was so exhausted by grief that she was unable to place any protective measures or boundaries in place to prevent Y from travelling to Syria. It was also concerned that Y was regularly leaving school and that no one was aware of where he was going or who he was mixing with, and that there was a plan for Y to travel to Dubai, despite him being on police bail. It was unclear where the funds had come from for his travel to Dubai. It was accepted that the options to travel to Libya and Syria from Dubai are greater than from the UK.

What did the court decide?
The court found in favour of the local authority and granted the wardship order. Hayden J, who delivered judgment in the case, was referred to a framework for assessment of risk used by Sussex Police (“Channel: Vulnerability assessment framework”). The document provides an outline of the assessment framework used to guide decisions about whether an individual needs support to address their vulnerability to radicalisation and the kind of support needed.

The framework was found to include features that were relevant to Y’s life, in particular a list of “engagement factors” that map pathways into terrorism, including “feelings of grievance and injustice” – it was not difficult to find that Y would feel a sense of injustice as his family believed his uncle had been brutalised by US forces in Guantanamo Bay, and Y was grieving the death of his brothers and friend. The fact that he has family and friends involved in extremism was found to be an obvious marker, as was his susceptibility to indoctrination, in this context.

The measure of wardship was found to be proportionate in the circumstances, as the balance falls in favour of protecting Y, which, in the circumstances, involves removal of his passport to prevent travel outside the UK.