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Mental Health Law Online

The internet resource on mental health law, and mental capacity law, for England & Wales. On the Subscriptions page you can sign up for free email updates, the email discussion list, the online forum and the CPD scheme (which provides 12 hours for £60 and is suitable for lawyers and non-lawyers).

The main content of this website has been divided into Case law (2200), Legislation (351) and Resources (695), together with separate Information pages (326) to link everything together.

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  • 25/11/21: Case (Capacity and sexual relations). A Local Authority v JB [2021] UKSC 52 — The joint expert described JB's number one priority as "to get" a woman as a sexual partner, with the sole goal being physical and sexual contact with a woman and any woman, and that JB lacked understanding of concepts of consent by the other person and so posed a risk of sexual offending to women. The Supreme Court (dismissing the Official Solicitor's appeal) decided that in assessing JB's capacity "the matter" was his "engaging in" (rather than consenting to) sexual relations, and that information relevant to that decision includes the fact that the other person must have the ability to consent to the sexual activity and must in fact consent before and throughout the sexual activity. The Supreme Court reiterated that capacity assessments should first ask whether the person is "unable to make a decision for himself in relation to the matter" (which involves formulating "the matter" and consequently identifying "the information relevant to the decision" which includes information about the reasonably foreseeable consequences to the patient and others) and secondly ask whether that inability is "because of" an impairment of, or a disturbance in the functioning of, the mind or brain. In relation to sexual relations "the matter" will ordinarily be formulated in a non-specific way: in this case JB's wishes were non-specific, but in another case "the matter" might be person-specific (e.g. sex between a long-standing couple where one person had a relevant impairment, or between two mutually-attracted people both with relevant impairments). The question of JB's capacity was remitted to the original judge for reconsideration.


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Neil Hickman and Christine Hutchison, The Mental Health Tribunal: An Essential Guide (Sage 2021) — Part of the Post-Qualifying Social Work Practice Series. 25% discount when bought via Sage Publishing with discount code UK21AUTHOR (see flyer). — Purchase from Amazon — Purchase from Bookshop.org 


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