Khelassi v London Borough of Brent

A housing authority reviewing homelessness priority need must engage with a material conflict in medical evidence bearing on vulnerability. It cannot lawfully treat reports as substantially consistent where they differ fundamentally on a current suicide risk and its consequences for homelessness. The adequacy of further inquiries is fact-sensitive. There is no general rule requiring an authority to obtain psychiatric evidence whenever an applicant has supplied psychiatric reports.

For a second appeal, a fact-specific challenge to a county court’s assessment of an inadequately reasoned review decision raises neither an important point of principle nor another compelling reason to grant permission.

The respondent, a homeless applicant, claimed priority need as a person vulnerable through mental illness under section 189(1)(c) of the Housing Act 1996. He supplied reports from consultant psychiatrists identifying depression, suicidal thoughts and a serious risk of suicide. Brent’s medical adviser considered that the depression did not materially impair his ability to function or cope with homelessness.

On a review under section 202, Brent upheld its decision that he was not vulnerable. Its decision letter said that the adviser’s assessment broadly concurred with the psychiatric evidence. On an appeal under section 204, the Romford County Court held that the review decision was erroneous in law and remitted the vulnerability question to Brent.

Brent sought permission to bring a second appeal. The central issues were whether the county court had imposed an impermissible general requirement for psychiatric evidence and whether its finding of legal error could stand.

Application for permission to bring a second appeal refused. The Romford County Court’s order remitting the vulnerability question to Brent therefore remained in force.

1. Sir Martin Nourse held that the proposed appeal raised no important point of principle or practice, and no other compelling reason to hear it. The county court had not laid down a general rule that a housing authority must obtain a psychiatrist’s opinion whenever psychiatric evidence conflicts with its own medical adviser. Its conclusion was confined to the exceptional facts, including the adviser’s failure to confront the fundamental disagreement about suicide risk.

2. The court added that, if permission had been granted, it would have dismissed the appeal on conventional Wednesbury principles. The county court had correctly directed itself and was entitled to find that the review letter failed properly to engage with the irreconcilable psychiatric evidence. The authority could not lawfully describe the reports as broadly concurring when one set identified a real and substantial suicide risk and the other found no material health risk from homelessness.

3. Lord Justice Pill and Lady Justice Arden agreed. They emphasised that Brent should have read and confronted the reports before deciding the review. The material difference of professional view was central to the statutory vulnerability assessment, and the county court’s conclusion that the review involved an error of law was adequately reasoned.

4. The court also regarded the time allowed to respond to the “minded to” letter, and the reliance on undisclosed general-practitioner material, as unsatisfactory in the circumstances. Sir Martin Nourse did not decide whether that procedural defect alone would have required the decision to be quashed.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): Brent’s application for permission to bring a second appeal was refused: [2006] EWCA Civ 1825. The county court’s remittal order remained in force.
• Romford County Court: On an appeal under section 204 of the Housing Act 1996, His Honour Judge Richardson allowed the applicant’s appeal, set aside Brent’s review decision as erroneous in law and remitted the vulnerability issue to Brent.