Mental Capacity Cases
EG & Anor v AP & Ors
Senior Judge Hilder has further refined our understanding of the scope of the Court of Protection’s power to make injunctions. This issue has been the subject of recent appellate level consideration in Re G (Court of Protection: Injunction) [2022] E...
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COP Jurisdiction and powers - Injunctions
Potter Rees Dolan Trust Corporation Ltd v Wl & Anor
Potter Rees Dolan Trust Corporation Ltd v Wl & Anor [2023] EWCOP 19 concerned the management of funds awarded in a damages claim in England to a person now habitually resident in Poland. The case had a tangled procedural history, caused in large...
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Recognition and enforcement
A Local Authority v PG & Ors
Summary
This decision provides a very clear and helpful route map through the complexities of fluctuating capacity. The case concerned a 34 year old woman, PG, who had diagnoses of an intellectual disability in the moderate range, and autism spect...
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Care
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Mental capacity - Assessing capacity
A Local Authority v PG & Ors (Headnoted version)
Mental capacity – assessing capacity – whether to take contingent or anticipatory approach to fluctuating capacity
A 34 year old woman had diagnoses of an intellectual disability in the moderate range, and autism spectrum disorder. She had also re...
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Mental capacity
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Care
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Mental capacity - Assessing capacity
HH v Hywel DDa University Health Board & Ors
Summary
How should the Court of Protection should proceed in a ‘two P’ situation: i.e a situation where two individuals both appear to lack the capacity to make the relevant decisions, and where those decisions are interconnected? In HH’s case, the...
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Practice and procedure - Other
Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust & Anor v RL & Ors
Summary
In a decision handed down in February 2023, but only published in June 2023, Sir Jonathan Cohen grappled with a dilemma that occurs relatively often in practice, but has been curiously under-considered by the courts: namely what ‘communicati...
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Mental capacity - Assessing capacity
A Local Authority v H
The case of A Local Authority v H [2023] EWCOP 4 concerned a young adult, H, described by Hayden J as a “natal male who now identifies as female” (and hence female pronouns are used here). H had experienced profound trauma and abuse in childhood an...
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Mental capacity - Assessing capacity
North Bristol NHS Trust v R
Summary
In 2015, in Kings College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust v C and V [2015] EWCOP 80, MacDonald J provided both the then-authoritative summary of the principles to apply in assessing capacity, and a masterclass in the application of those prin...
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Mental capacity - Medical treatment
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Mental Health Act 1983 - Interface with MCA
North Bristol NHS Trust v R (Headnoted version)
Mental capacity – assessing capacity – whether woman had capacity to make a decision to undergo a clinically indicated procedure
A woman was a serving prisoner, a failed asylum contact, and wished no contact with her mother who was understood to be...
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Mental capacity
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Mental capacity - Assessing capacity
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Mental capacity - Medical treatment
Manchester City Council v CP & Ors
Summary
Is depriving a person of their mobile phone depriving them of their liberty? That was the very 21st century question confronting MacDonald J in Manchester City Council v CP & Ors [2023] EWHC 133 (Fam). Whilst his analysis concerned th...
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Article 5 ECHR - Children and young persons
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Article 5 ECHR - Deprivation of liberty
Re X (Secure Accommodation: Lack of Provision)
Summary
It is exceptionally unusual for a judge, let alone a very senior judge, actively to invite a claim to be brought against the State for systemic human rights breaches, but that could be said to be the effect of the judgment of the President ...
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Article 5 ECHR - Children and young persons
Sunderland City Council v Macpherson
Sunderland City Council v Macpherson [2023] EWCOP 3. This was an application to commit the defendant Ms Macpherson to prison for contempt of court for breaches of injunctions preventing her from publishing material about her daughter FP, the subject...
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COP Jurisdiction and powers - Contempt of Court