Facts: C had been convicted of murder, then transferred to hospital as a mental patient. After many years in detention, the First-tier Tribunal recommended that he was suitable for conditional discharge but the Secretary of State for Justice refused to allow C trial periods of unescorted leave in the community. C sought a judicial review of that decision. His application was refused and the High Court judge revoked C’s anonymity order. The Court of Appeal upheld that revocation.

Judgment: the Supreme Court (Hale, Clarke, Wilson, Carnwath and Hughes JJSC) held that there was no presumption of anonymity in the High Court and above, in relation to mental patients challenging aspects of their care and treatment under the Mental Health Act 1983, but that an anonymity order should be made in this case otherwise the patient’s integration into the community would be jeopardised.

Comment: although this is a judgment on particular facts the analysis of the Supreme Court, allowing the appeal from decisions by the High Court and Court of Appeal, suggests that there will be very few cases indeed, if any, where anonymity may be refused in this type of case – perhaps where there is no real prospect of the mental patient being discharged into the community, at all, or in the foreseeable future. 