Holloway, R (on the application of) v Oxfordshire County Council & Ors

An interim order under Mental Health Act 1983, section 29, may be made without notice where urgent action is necessary, although the nearest relative has an important safeguarding role. The procedural requirements for an interlocutory order differ from those for a final displacement order. A failure to give notice or make further inquiries is not necessarily jurisdictional. An applicant seeking relief without notice must disclose all material facts, including matters adverse to the application. Where urgency is clear, a prompt return date is fixed, safeguards remain available, and the interim order itself does not authorise detention, the resulting prejudice is not necessarily irreversible.

The claimant was detained in hospital under Mental Health Act 1983, section 3. The authority for his detention had mistakenly not been renewed. While he was temporarily detained under section 5(2), Oxfordshire County Council applied without notice under section 29 to displace his mother as nearest relative because she objected to a fresh section 3 application.

The County Court made an interim displacement order, followed by a fresh section 3 application. A final displacement order was later made after a contested hearing. The claimant sought judicial review, arguing that the lack of notice breached natural justice and Convention rights, deprived the County Court of jurisdiction, and invalidated the later detention.

1. Application dismissed. The County Court had jurisdiction to make an interim order under section 29 without notice.
2. The statutory scheme did not preclude such relief. CCR Order 49, rule 12(3), requiring the nearest relative to be made a respondent unless the court orders otherwise, did not prevent a without-notice application or determine whether the court could make an interim order.
3. Natural justice at a preliminary stage may require less than it does before a binding decision. Interim relief without notice is lawful where urgent action is necessary, provided the applicant makes full and candid disclosure and the affected person is given a prompt opportunity to be heard.
4. Urgency was established by the mistaken lapse of the section 3 authority, the medical assessment of the claimant’s dangerousness, and the imminent expiry of the section 5(2) authority. Interim displacement did not itself authorise detention. Safeguards included the medical recommendations required for section 3 admission, the ability to seek discharge or variation, the return hearing, and later statutory routes to challenge detention or seek discharge.
5. The judge should have inquired whether informal notice was practicable and whether the hearing could be adjourned. That omission could have supported an appeal, but it did not amount to a gross and obvious irregularity or deprive the County Court of jurisdiction.
6. The remaining challenge to the hospital’s detention did not arise. The court observed that the wider protection afforded by section 6(3) to hospital managers acting on an application valid on its face appeared to make the claim against the third defendant misconceived.

This was a first-instance judicial review in the Administrative Court. The judgment records that Crane J granted permission on 24 November 2006 and that the County Court later made a final displacement order on 8 January 2007.