Court Report: Case clarifies local authorities' duty of care over abuse and neglect
Coram Children's Legal Centre
Wednesday, July 3, 2019
Poole Borough Council v GN [2019] UK SC 25
This ruling by the Supreme Court provides new guidance on the liability of local authorities for failing to protect vulnerable children against abuse or neglect, whether the child is officially in the authority's care or not.
The case involved two children, aged nine and seven, who were placed by Poole Borough Council in a house on an estate with their mother. One child has severe mental and physical disabilities. The neighbouring family, who were already known to the council for their antisocial behaviour, abused and harassed the children and mother for several years, through vandalism, attacks on the family home, threats of violence, verbal abuse, and physical assaults.
The claimants sought damages for physical and psychological injuries sustained as a result of this harassment and abuse. Despite their having asking to be rehoused away from their neighbours, they alleged that injuries were caused by the local authority's negligent failure to exercise its statutory powers under the Children Act 1989.
Duty of care
The court concluded that the public policy defence illustrated by previous case law, which had dismissed the existence of a duty of care owed by local authorities towards children with whom they came into contact in the performance of their functions under the Children Act 1989, was no longer good law. The court concluded that the local authority could be liable and the existence of any duty instead required examination of the specific facts of the case. That said, the necessary grounds were not satisfied in the present case. So while the family's case may serve to protect the rights of individuals in similar circumstances, their individual case was unsuccessful.
Peter Garsden, a partner at Simpson Millar, who represented two children's charities involved in the litigation, highlighted that the case had "served to clarify the law as far as the duty of care that social workers have towards young people and children who are not necessarily in a care institution, but are known to be at risk" and as a result many abuse and negligence cases against local authorities that were put on hold pending a decision would now be able to progress.