A (By His Litigation Friend, Valbona Mejzninin), R (on the application of) v London Borough of Croydon

A local authority assessing a young person’s age must make its own decision on adequate information and give sound and cogent reasons if it declines to follow medical evidence. Age assessment is an inexact science, but that does not make paediatric evidence practically irrelevant. Margins of error vary according to the assessment undertaken, and a narrower margin may be appropriate where dental examination or other specialist assessment has been carried out.

The authority must engage with the substance of the medical report and explain why other material outweighs it. Irrational criticisms, failure to consider material findings, or reliance on non-expert views against uncontradicted specialist evidence may render the decision Wednesbury unreasonable.

The claimant, an Iraqi asylum-seeker, claimed to have been born in November 1992 and therefore to be aged 15 when assessed. The defendant local authority initially assessed him as approximately 17 and later reviewed that assessment after receiving reports from consultant paediatricians Dr Birch and Dr Michie.

The authority concluded that the original assessment was correct. The claimant sought judicial review, alleging that the authority had irrationally rejected or failed properly to consider Dr Birch’s report and had failed to address the appropriate care or pathway plan. The central issue was whether the review decision was lawful on Wednesbury grounds.

1. Permission and relief. Permission was granted at the rolled-up hearing. The claim succeeded and the decision dated 21 October 2008 was quashed.
2. Legal framework. The local authority had to make its own age assessment on adequate information, while avoiding an unduly judicialised process and giving adequate reasons. Medical evidence was not determinative, but it was relevant and had to be considered. If the authority declined to follow a medical report, its reasons had to be sound and cogent. Otherwise the decision was irrational and liable to be quashed.
3. Dr Birch’s report. The decision effectively rejected the report. Several criticisms were factually mistaken, immaterial or unsupported. In particular, the authority wrongly treated a paediatrician as lacking sufficient expertise to assess dental age, required unsupported dental X-rays, and attached no weight to dental evidence despite its importance under the RCPCH Guidelines.
4. Margin of error. The authority misapplied the RCPCH Guidelines by treating a possible margin of error of five years as effectively precluding medical assistance in deciding where a person aged between 15 and 20 fell. The margin was not invariably five years. The guidance recognised narrower margins in appropriate cases, including where dental assessment had been undertaken. The reasoning in R(I and O) v SSHD [2005] EWHC 1025 (Admin) was applied.
5. Balancing other material. Even if the report had not been rejected outright, the authority failed to explain why Dr Michie’s less detailed report, social workers’ observations and the earlier assessment outweighed Dr Birch’s statistical conclusions. Experienced social workers’ observations were relevant, but they required proper evaluation against the medical evidence.
6. Pathway plan. The duty depended on the claimant’s actual age, although the dispute created practical difficulty. The issue was academic because the authority had agreed in principle to produce the appropriate plan.
7. The matter was left to the authority to reconsider on a proper basis. The possibility that it might reach the same conclusion did not justify withholding relief.

First-instance judicial review proceedings. The judgment records earlier procedural orders granting directions for the rolled-up hearing, but no earlier judgment on the merits.