High Court orders interim relief against council as maker of impugned age assessment decision

In UYR, R (on the application of) v Derby City Council [2025] EWHC 2081 (Admin) (25 July 2025), Deputy High Court Judge Karen Ridge concluded: “If the defendant is wrong about the age of the claimant, then the defendant would have had responsibility for safeguarding the needs of the claimant under section 20 of the Children Act 1989 from the date of the impugned decision.

“Whilst [another council] has subsequently assumed responsibility for providing Children Act services pursuant to the section 20 duty, that has occurred after the date of the impugned decision and the date when, if the claim succeeds, the defendant would have been liable to provide Children Act services.”

Outlining the case background, the judge noted that the claimant currently resides in the administrative area of Manchester City Council, named as the Second Interested Party.

The judicial review claim was a challenge to a decision to assess the claimant to be an adult and to decline to provide services pursuant to the Children Act 1989. The decision was made in March 2025 by the defendant, Derby City Council (DCC).

The judge said: “The claimant has made an application for interim relief seeking an order that the defendant should treat the claimant as a putative child, aged 15, pending the final conclusion of these proceedings or until further order. Following a hospital admission the claimant has been accommodated by MCC since around 9 May 2025 as a looked after child under the provisions of the Children Act 1989.”

The claimant's country of origin is Ethiopia. The claimant's witness statement documented his life in Ethiopia, the murder of his father and his imprisonment alongside his brother for one month before his escape from detention.

On his arrival into the UK, the claimant said that he approached the police for help and he informed the police that he was a child born in October 2009. He was screened as an adult and dispersed into adult accommodation. He spent four days in accommodation in Bedford, before being moved to Derby where he stayed for 20 days.

In April 2025 he was moved to Manchester where he has remained since.

In March 2025, DCC social workers conducted a brief age enquiry and concluded that the claimant was not his claimed age and that he was “clearly an adult”.

Following this, the claimant's legal representatives sent a pre-action protocol letter to the defendant, challenging the decision not to treat the claimant as a child and not to provide him with support under section 20 of the Children Act 1989.

The judge said: “Evidence produced by the claimant attests to his mental health deteriorating due to the trauma he has suffered and his sense of isolation and lack of support. [In] May 2025 the Claimant presented himself at a Manchester hospital after collapsing. The staff nurse on duty was of the view that the Claimant was very young and she made a safeguarding referral to MCC.

“The Claimant was then admitted to the children's ward of the hospital. Emergency Duty Social Workers from MCC attended at the hospital and decided that the Claimant should be accommodated under section 20 of the Children Act 1989 after his discharge from hospital. Thereafter the Claimant has been accommodated in foster care arranged by MCC on an interim basis.”

At the hearing, counsel for the claimant submitted that the defendant (DCC) formed its own decision on the claimant's age, that decision is subject to challenge, and therefore claimed interim relief against DCC.

In the alternative, it was submitted that the “geographical rule” applies in terms of interpretation of the Children Act 1989, and that MCC must therefore provide services under the Act but that in any event, it is for local authority services to work together “as recognised by the Joint Working Guidance”.

Considering the case, the judge observed that the claim proceeded on two bases: the claimant's age as a question of precedent fact and procedural unfairness and/or failure to comply with guidance and relevant caselaw.

She said: “The safeguarding referral made by the Accident and Emergency Staff Nurse was an indication that a medical professional had formed such a view of the claimant's age and vulnerabilities that it warranted such a referral. Similarly, the two Emergency Social Workers from MCC also formed a view that the claimant was a child and his situation was such that powers should be exercised under the Children Act 1989 to accommodate him.

“[…] Given the differing views of various professionals and other individuals, the fact that the claimant is currently being accommodated as a child and all other evidence, I am satisfied that there is a serious issue to be tried.”

Meanwhile, the judge acknowledged there was “little doubt” that either party would be harmed by the wrongful grant or refusal of injunctive relief in a way that could not be “adequately compensated in damages”.

She continued: “Recent events and the evidence of the claimant's mental health issues weigh on the side of granting interim relief to ensure that the claimant is treated as a putative child pending the outcome of this claim.

“I have concluded that the risk to the well-being of the claimant of not treating him as a child is a significant factor which weighs in the balance and that he should be treated as a child pending the outcome of the dispute about his age. That points to the grant of interim relief.”

Finally, turning to the question of which local authority should be directed to provide interim relief, the judge noted that the issue was considered in R(HA) v London Borough of Hillingdon and the Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] EWHC 291 (Admin) in circumstances where the defendant authority had conducted an age assessment and concluded that the claimant was an adult and the claimant was residing in adult accommodation in the administrative district of a different authority.

In the case, Bean J observed that:

"8. In R(A) v Croydon LBC [2009] 1 WLR 2557 the Supreme Court held that whether a person is a child is a question to which there is a right or a wrong answer. Lady Hale said at para [27]:-

"It may be difficult to determine what that answer is. The decision makers may have to do their best on the basis of less than perfect or conclusive evidence. But that is true of many questions of fact which regularly come before the court. That does not prevent them from being questions for the courts rather than for other kinds of decision makers."

9. It follows from this, as Beatson J observed in R(MWA) v Birmingham City Council [2011] EWHC 3488, that if the relevant local authority gets the decision as to whether the Claimant is a child wrong, "it cannot give itself a jurisdiction which it does not have, and cannot as a result of that decision decline a jurisdiction which it does have." "

Concluding the present case, Judge Ridge said: “If the defendant is wrong about the age of the claimant, then the defendant would have had responsibility for safeguarding the needs of the claimant under section 20 of the Children Act 1989 from the date of the impugned decision. Whilst MCC has subsequently assumed responsibility for providing Children Act services pursuant to the section 20 duty, that has occurred after the date of the impugned decision and the date when, if the claim succeeds, the defendant would have been liable to provide Children Act services.”

She continued: “The Joint Working Guidance is aimed at reducing unnecessary and repeated age assessment by different local authorities. In this case there is a live dispute as to the claimant's age - that issue needs to be resolved between the claimant and defendant. I have concluded that, in the interim, the claimant should be accommodated as a putative child pending resolution of the issue. If the claimant is a child the duty to accommodate would have fallen on the defendant at the date of the age assessment and prior to his current accommodation by MCC. There is no guarantee that MCC will continue to accommodate the claimant as a child; they are now on notice as to the dispute regarding his age.”

Following the rationale of the Joint Working Guidance regarding duplication of work by authorities, the judge was persuaded that it was “appropriate” to order interim relief against Derby City Council, as the maker of the impugned decision.

Lottie Winson