Lack of suitable services in England sees troubled teen placed in specialist school in Scotland

Social workers in Northumberland have placed a troubled teenage boy in a specialist residential school in Scotland after struggling to find a suitable unit in England.

An English High Court judge has approved the move but has told council bosses that judges in Scotland should also give their backing.

Details of the case have emerged in a ruling by Mr Justice Cobb following a hearing in the Family Division of the High Court in Newcastle upon Tyne.

The judge said the boy, who is in his mid-teens, had experienced a traumatic childhood and had gone into council care because his family could not cope with his disruptive behaviour.

He had been placed at a unit in Newcastle but bosses there also said they could not manage him.

Social service bosses at Northumberland County Council (pictured) had then been unable to find another unit in England – and the boy had at one stage temporarily lived in a caravan in the grounds of the Newcastle unit.

Lawyers told Mr Justice Cobb the only offer had come from a specialist school in Scotland.

The judge approved the move but said the Scottish judges should also consider the case.

He said the boy could not be identified.

The most senior family court judge in England and Wales raised concern about a shortage of secure accommodation units in England for children a year ago.

Sir James Munby, president of the Family Division of the High Court, said in October 2016 the problem had led to social services bosses at councils in England trying to place children in their care in secure accommodation units in Scotland.

He highlighted the issue in a written analysis of cases involving two children.

A number of lower-ranking judges in England have also raised concerns about the shortage of secure accommodation for children.

In 2014 Judge Sarah Singleton warned of a ”terrible national shortage” of places in secure units for dangerous youngsters.

She said there was a ”gross shortage of resource” which created a ”lack of protection for the public”.

The judge made her comments in a written analysis of a case, involving a 15-year-old boy who had a ”terrifying” history of violence, following a family court hearing in Lancaster.

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