Dorothea Gartland considers the high cost of child protection
The Court of Appeal decision in A v East Sussex County Council & Chief Constable of Sussex Police [2010] EWCA Civ 743 was handed down earlier this month (2 July). Mr Justice Hedley gave the judgment of the court, which concerned a claim for damages under the Human Rights Act 1998 by a mother whose child was removed from hospital by police using police protection powers.
The court gave permission to appeal but refused the appeal. Paragraph 21 sets out the position taken by the court: “Sadly the experiences of the appellant simply illustrate the truth that viable child protection procedures in any society will sometimes inflict what turns out to have been unnecessary distress on families. That does not make them or the exercise of them thereby unlawful.”
The facts
The 22-year-old mother had brought her two-month-old baby to hospital and told treating doctors that there had been two episodes where the child had stopped breathing. The child was kept in hospital from the 22 December until the 29 December last year and was
