If you find yourself in this situation, you’ll need the best lawyers available to help.
We can help by:
- Representing you in Court of Protection proceedings to challenge the deprivation of your liberty
- Claiming for compensation under the Human Rights Act, if necessary.
We help clients who lack capacity to consent their care arrangements. This is usually done through a family member or advocate acting as litigation friend.
Yes, a person who lacks capacity to consent to their care arrangements can be deprived of their liberty in any setting, be that a care home, hospital or in their own home.
The Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards and therefore the standard authorisation can however only be used where a person is living in a care home or hospital.
If you’re deprived of your liberty in your own home, that can only be authorised directly by the Court of Protection, and the local authority will need to issue an application at court to do that.
Our national team is ranked Number 1 for Human Rights law in the leading independent guides to the legal profession, the Legal 500 and Chambers & Partners. Our lawyers are members of the Court of Protection Practitioners Association (CoPPA), so you know you're dealing with genuine specialists.
In addition to our legal expertise, we're skilful mediators and have helped many clients to negotiate solutions in hotly disputed cases out of court. With offices around the country, we can help anyone who finds themselves involved in a dispute over deprivation of liberty.
Meet our team of Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards Lawyers
Care homes can only provide treatment to an adult if they’ve received their consent to do so. Sometimes receiving consent from that person isn’t possible. Some people with mental health conditions or medical issues can’t provide consent because they lack the mental capacity to do so. In this situation, the care provider can apply for authorisation to restrain a person or prevent them from leaving. They can then provide care and treatment for the person.
A local authority will need to follow the rules set out in the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards. These safeguards set out what the authority must do before and while limiting a person’s freedom. Any deprivation of liberty must be in the person's best interests.
In a care home, a deprivation of liberty can only be authorised by a standard authorisation issued by a local authority (known as the supervisory body). It’s easier to challenge the deprivation of your liberty in the Court of Protection if there is a standard authorisation in place. It gives them access to support (usually paid professionals, although not always) in a role known as Relevant Person’s Representative or RPR. It also lets them access non-means tested legal aid so they can have access to legal advice.
However, sometimes local authorities do not properly follow these rules, and so are in effect unlawfully depriving someone of their liberty. The most common scenarios where someone has been unlawfully detained are:
- Where they lack capacity to consent to their care arrangements and there is no legal framework authorisation (such as under a standard authorisation under Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards or under the Mental Health Act)
- When someone has capacity and expresses a wish to leave but needs support to do so and this is not provided
- When someone lacking capacity has expressed a wish to challenge, but no one issued a case in the Court of Protection on their behalf.
If a person has been unlawfully deprived of their liberty, they may be able to bring a claim for compensation under the Human Rights Act. A court will award compensation if there has been a considerable breach of your right to liberty (Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights). This usually means that if the local authority had followed the correct process, that person wouldn’t have been deprived of their liberty at all or they would have been living in a less restrictive setting such as their own home.
Compensation claims are often funded by legal aid. If you approach us for help with your situation, we can sometimes offer to work on a conditional fee arrangement. This means you won’t pay anything if your claim is unsuccessful.
Although no amount of money will help you recover from the stress, past clients have received settlements that help them move forward.