25.72R (Hughes) v Liverpool CC [2005] EWHC 428 (Admin), (2005) 8 CCLR 243
A breach of duty to provide social care did not inevitably result in a breach of the ECHR, for which the threshold was high
Facts: Mr Hughes was a young man who was severely disabled, mentally and physically. He was cared for at home by his mother, with help from outside agencies. Liverpool acknowledged, however, that his mother’s accommodation was wholly unsuitable for him. An assessment concluded that he needed suitable accommodation and, also, respite care. However, none was provided.
Judgment: Mitting J held that Liverpool was in breach of section 21 and 29 of the National Assistance Act 1948, by failing to meet Mr Hughes’ assessed needs. He ordered respite care to be provided each weekend, and a re-assessment of the mother’s needs. He rejected, however, a claim for damages under the ECHR:
36. Accepting, without deciding, that Article 6 imposed on Liverpool a positive duty to promote the claimant’s private and family life, I am not satisfied that it has acted so as to be in breach of that right. The claimant’s private and family life have been protected and promoted by the efforts principally of his mother, but supplemented by carers paid for by Liverpool. Subject to the limitations necessarily imposed upon the claimant by his disabilities, he has been able to enjoy his private and family life. It is true that his mother has identified respects in which protection of his dignity and personal integrity would be improved were suitable accommodation to be provided. But in all other respects, as far as I can tell from the documents that I have read and the submissions that have been made to me, the limitations imposed upon his enjoyment of private and family life stem from his own condition.
37. The burden imposed on his mother has been very great, even intolerable. But it is not she who is the claimant. As a result of her efforts, the impact upon the claimant’s private and family life of Liverpool’s shortcomings in fulfilment of its statutory duties has been reduced to a level at which his rights have not been infringed. In any event, I am not satisfied that the high threshold identified by Lord Woolf LCJ in R (Anufrijeva) v Southwark LBC [2004] QB 1124 at para 43 has been crossed. Nor do I think it is necessary to achieve just satisfaction of the claimant’s claim that damages should be awarded. I refer to Lord Woolf’s analysis of the circumstances in which damages may be awarded in paragraph 55 of that decision.