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NLJ this week: Surreptitious medication & the Court of Protection

20 January 2023
Issue: 8009 / Categories: Legal News , Court of Protection , Mental health
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Barrister Dr Laura Davidson explored the murky legal world of covert medication and the lack of legal safeguards surrounding these, in the second part of her series on Court of Protection practices, in this week’s NLJ.

Davidson, of No5 Chambers, specialises in mental health and capacity law. Here, she looks into a specific case (Re A (Covert medication: closed proceedings [2022] EWCOP 44). Having set down a detailed history of the case in the first part of her article, she now covers the hearing ‘following disclosure of the surreptitious medication duplicity’, reflects on the lawfulness of excluding the mother of the young woman at the centre of the case and discusses the practice of covert medication itself.

The court had previously held that contact between the mother and daughter was not in the daughter’s best interests due to the risk of adverse influence, but in the meantime hormone treatment was given. What safeguards exist in this situation? It can lead to a complicated situation for the court. Davidson writes: ‘Poole J’s strange decision to inform B and her lawyers of the non-disclosure only at the start of B’s application for A’s return home was an unnecessary ambush, unsurprisingly leading to an adjournment for B to properly consider the issues and documentation.’

Read Pt 2 in full here.

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Mourant—Stephen Alexander

Mourant—Stephen Alexander

Jersey litigation lead appointed to global STEP Council

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mfg Solicitors—nine trainees

Firm invests in future talent with new training cohort

360 Law Group—Anthony Gahan

360 Law Group—Anthony Gahan

Investment banking veteran appointed as chairman to drive global growth

NEWS
Artificial intelligence may be revolutionising the law, but its misuse could wreck cases and careers, warns Clare Arthurs of Penningtons Manches Cooper in this week's NLJ
Bea Rossetto of the National Pro Bono Centre makes the case for ‘General Practice Pro Bono’—using core legal skills to deliver life-changing support, without the need for niche expertise—in this week's NLJ
Small law firms want to embrace technology but feel lost in a maze of jargon, costs and compliance fears, writes Aisling O’Connell of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in this week's NLJ
Charles Pigott of Mills & Reeve reports on Haynes v Thomson, the first judicial application of the Supreme Court’s For Women Scotland ruling in a discrimination claim, in this week's NLJ
The Supreme Court issued a landmark judgment in July that overturned the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, once poster boys of the Libor and Euribor scandal. In NLJ this week, Neil Swift of Peters & Peters considers what the ruling means for financial law enforcement
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