Council in disabled teenager case ordered to pay all parties’ legal bills
A council that came under fire from a judge over the way staff dealt with a severely disabled teenager has been told to pick up lawyers’ bills run up by everyone involved in the case.
Judge Nicholas Marston said in a ruling published in September last year that there had been a ”systematic failure” by Somerset County Council.
Now, in a follow-up ruling, the judge has ordered the council to pay the legal costs of everyone involved.
He had said that the woman, now 20, had not been allowed to return home after bruising was spotted on her chest when she was in a respite care placement.
The judge was ”very critical” and said social services staff failed to respect the human rights of the woman and her family.
He suggested that social workers did not carry out a ”proper investigation” into the cause of the bruising, and he said there was ”no question” that the woman was ”removed unlawfully” from her family.
Judge Marston said in his latest ruling that he had criticised “almost every aspect” of the council’s conduct, and it is right that the authority should pay the costs of everyone involved.
Lawyers would not say how much the total bill would come to, but it could run into hundreds of thousands of pounds.
He had analysed the case at hearings in the Court of Protection – where issues involving sick and vulnerable people are considered – in Bristol.
The woman was not identified.
A solicitor who represented the woman’s mother said she had argued that the council acted unreasonably and should therefore pay.
“We sought to persuade the court that the local authority had acted unreasonably in its conduct of the proceedings and that consequently, there should be a departure from the normal position with regards costs,” said Catrin Blake, a solicitor specialising in mental health and Court of Protection law who works for Butler & Co Solicitors, based in Taunton.
“The usual position in Court of Protection proceedings is that no party will be liable to pay the costs of another.
“There are however exceptions to that rule and we successfully argued that this case was one of those exceptions.”
She added: “The way in which the local authority insisted on continuing to seek findings against the family or claim that the family could not meet (the woman’s) needs, despite evidence to the contrary, meant that we were able to argue that they had acted unreasonably.
“Consequently, His Honour Judge Marston made an order requiring the local authority to pay our costs.”
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