Latest Cases

Housing – Homeless person. The appellant, whose entire income comprised state benefits, had unsuccessfully applied for homelessness assistance from the respondent local authority. The review decision upheld the determination and concluded that, given the household income, there should have been sufficient flexibility to meet the shortfall in rent. The county court dismissed her appeal. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, dismissed the appeal and held that benefits income did not have any special status or treatment in the exercise of establishing whether accommodation was affordable, nor was the starting point that benefits were set at subsistence level and were not designed to give a level of flexibility to spend outside maintaining a very basic standard of living on expenditure such as additional housing costs. 

Medical practitioner – Negligence. The judge held that the claimant had demonstrated that the defendant NHS Trust, by one of its consultant surgeons, had been negligent in his conduct of her total hip replacement and that she had suffered injury as a result. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, dismissed the defendant's appeal. Among other things, it rejected the grounds of appeal by which it was contended that the judge's decision had been wrong on the evidence and held that there had been no procedural irregularity at all. 

Minor – Removal outside jurisdiction. A father had applied for the return of his children to France after they had been wrongfully removed by the mother and taken to London. The mother applied to strike out the father's application, or for summary dismissal, as there was an order of the French court in favour of the father that the children should live in London with him. The Family Division dismissed her application, but stayed the father's application until the conclusion of the father's proposed proceedings to seek the recognition and enforcement of the French order. 

Marriage – Forced marriage. The applicant local authority applied, in the Court of Protection, and for a forced marriage protection order in the Family Division. In the absence of a psychologist's report, the court adjourned the hearing and discharged the existing very extensive forced marriage protection order injunctions on the basis of undertakings in similar terms. 

Human rights – Right to respect for private and family life. The European Court of Human Rights held that, insofar as the applicant complained about the covert surveillance of legal consultations, there had been a violation of art 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. However, there had been no violation insofar as the applicant complained about the covert surveillance of consultations between detainees and their appropriate adults. 

Family proceedings – Orders in family proceedings. The Family Division held that although there had been a breach of a passport order with a penal notice attached, D would be committed for contempt of court but would receive a suspended sentence. 

Family proceedings – Orders in family proceedings. The Family Division made a secure accommodation order under s 25 of the Children Act in respect of S who had a history of volatile and difficult behaviour for a one month period. That was the absolute minimum time which would be of value the professionals and S herself. 

Pension – Pension scheme. The Chancery Division construed an amendment to pension provisions governing the FDR Limited Pension scheme in the light of a proviso to the scheme rules which prevented amendments that would prejudice members of the scheme. 

Contempt of court – Committal. The liquidators of a company applied to the Chancery Division to commit the company's directors for contempt of court in failing to comply with a disclosure order. The court imposed fines on two of the four directors whose breach had been by reason of the conduct of others because the funding and structure of the disclosure exercise had been in the hands of the other two directors. The remaining two directors, who had agreed to fund the disclosure exercise, were sentenced to imprisonment on a suspended basis. 

Immigration – Leave to enter. The appellant had succeeded in an out of country appeal against deportation, but was refused entry clearance to re-join his partner and child in the United Kingdom. His appeal to the First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) (FTT) was dismissed, as was his appeal to the Upper Tribunal (UT). The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, refused him permission to appeal. The UT had identified an error of law made by the FTT and had not, itself, erred in using the findings of fact made in the deportation appeal as a starting point for drawing its own conclusions on the issue of entry clearance.