Facts: HL suffered from autism and lacked the capacity to consent to residence, care or medical treatment. After a period of hospital treatment (intensive behavioural therapy) lasting seven years he had been discharged to the care of paid carers. About three years later, HL became distressed at a day centre and was taken to hospital. The hospital deemed it necessary to keep HL in hospital and provide him with intensive behavioural therapy, excluding the carers from visiting him for a period of time.

Judgment: the European Court of Human Rights held that HL had been deprived of his liberty in that the hospital exercised complete and effective control over him and that his deprivation of liberty had not been lawful because in the UK, there were no fixed rules or provisions for review of the detention of persons lacking mental capacity and because habeas corpus and judicial review were not, in all the circumstances, effective remedies.