One of our senior child care solicitors, Tony McGovern, was involved in the recently reported case in the Guardian on 10th October 2018 which highlighted the concern among the judiciary about the shortages of secure accommodation spaces.
The Guardian reported that a family court judge had condemned a lack of secure accommodation after she was left with nowhere to send a convicted 16-year-old who desperately needed to escape gang involvement in “county lines” drug dealing. In a fiercely worded ruling, Judge Mary Lazarus said the case represented “yet another sorry example of the state failing a child in need”.
Her eight-page judgment, delivered at Bromley family court in south London earlier this month, described a “wholly unacceptable situation” in which she had been “driven not to grant a secure accommodation order for a child who needs one”.
The article can be read here https://bit.ly/2Ek7BXx
The full judgement can be read here https://bit.ly/2ORsBsX
