In R v Bournewood Community and Mental Health NHS Trust, the House of Lords ruled that a man who had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital without capable consent had not been unlawfully detained under the common law.
Due to the sedative, HL was compliant and did not resist admission, so doctors chose not to admit him using powers of detention under the Mental Health Act 1983.
A report by the Health Service Ombudsman[1] heard evidence from a range of professionals that the standard of HL's care had been poor in the hospital, and he had become distressed and agitated.
The Court also commented that a troubling feature of the appeal was that the respondent Trust was not alone in misinterpreting the Act, and potentially the judgement could apply to many patients informally detained like HL.
They stated that the practice of informal detention in cases like HL could not justify disregarding the Act, especially in light of this bypassing its safeguards to detained patients.
[4] Lord Steyn dissented from this aspect of the judgement, stating that the Trust's argument that HL, not being formally detained, was always free to go 'stretched credulity to breaking point' and was 'a fairytale'.