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Mental Health & Community Care

Legal remedies for vulnerable adults - a thorough understanding of disability, detention and care

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Tooks Mental Health & Community Care team undertakes a wide range of public law and Tribunal work on behalf of those detained under the Mental Health Acts including mentally disordered offenders. Two members of chambers sit as Chairs of the MHRT.

The team has a breadth of practical understanding of community care provision and its overlap with mental health and housing law - statutory, policy and guidance - and regularly represents persons who may lack capacity in the new Court of Protection, ongoing 'best interests' matters in the Family Division of the High Court and in the Administrative Court.

Members of the team also advise and represent local authorities in the exercise of their statutory functions and duties, policy issues and disputes relating to service delivery, s117 aftercare, direct payments, choice of accommodation and independent living. We also advise individuals in these areas.

The team has particular specialist expertise in cases raising human rights issues and where clients are excluded from mainstream benefits (e.g. asylum seekers and persons subject to immigration control). Expert in rendering this complex jargon-riddled field accessible to service users and judges alike, members of the team can provide fast, informed advice about the options available when problems and concerns arise about the provision of care and support to vulnerable clients. Team members also draw on their experience in other practice groups within chambers particularly prison law, education & children's public law, family and immigration law and are used to dealing with cases which raise issues which overlap these areas.

The team has a range of experience in advising and representing disabled people and their carers on a wide range of issues including:

  • community care assessments,
  • changes to care provision,
  • charging for community care services,
  • unsuitable accommodation and
  • welfare benefits.

The team is also used to working with marginalised groups that have particular difficulty accessing health and community care services such as ex-prisoners, Gypsies and Travellers, trans people, young people and substance misusers. There are a number of experienced discrimination law practitioners in the team who are able to advise and represent service users who have been subject to unlawful discrimination on grounds of race, sex, disability, sexual orientation or faith by providers of health and community care services.

The team includes MHLA members and speakers and is willing to provide in house training on specific areas - details on request.

Further Information

Further information about individual members of our Mental Health and Community Care team can be obtained using the links to the right. For training, or any other enquiries, you can also contact our clerks directly:

Recent news

  • Amanda Weston Holding Workshop Session at the LAG Community Care Conference
    Amanda Weston will be holding a Workshop Discussion Session on Deprivations of liberty at the LAG Community Care Conference: What Price Dignity?
    17 November 2011
  • Tragic Case of Human Sacrifice Mum
    Peter Wilcock represented Shayma Ali, the mentally ill mother who sacrificed her 4 year old daughter, to exorcise evil spirits.
    10 October 2011
  • Adam Straw to Speak at LAG Social Welfare Conference
    Adam Straw is to speak on judicial review of the cuts, alongside the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, at the LAG Social Welfare conference on 4th July 2011.
    20 June 2011
  • Hannah Rought-Brooks Returns to Practice
    Tooks are pleased to announce that Hannah Rought-Brooks has returned to practice following her sabbatical in Palestine.
    16 March 2011
  • Court of Protection Orders that Autistic Son Must Be Allowed to Return Home
    The Court of Protection has opened its doors on an application by the media to attend a hearing and publish some details of the challenge by Mark Neary to a ‘deprivation of liberty’ authorisation given by London Borough of Hillingdon to one of its care homes to detain Steven Neary aged 20 against his will and that of his father Mark who has been his main carer for many years.
    1 March 2011
  • Adam Straw writes on prison and mental health law
    21 November 2007

[Image] Mental Health & Community Care