Hounslow Council ordered to pay £97,000 damages over gang's abuse of vulnerable family » Communities » 24dash.com

A vulnerable family who was subjected to a horrific ordeal in their own home by a gang of youths has won £97,000 damages against the local authority who failed to protect them.

In a landmark ruling at London's High Court, Mr Justice Maddison held that the London Borough of Hounslow owed a duty of care to 51-year-old X and his 45-year-old wife, Y, who cannot be identified for legal reasons.

It is the first time that such a duty has been found to exist in relation to vulnerable adults in the community.

Hounslow, which had denied liability, was given permission to appeal, with the compensation stayed pending its resolution.

The couple and the wife's elder daughter, now aged 18, all have learning difficulties and were known to social services, but were able to live, together with the wife's younger daughter, now aged 15, at a low-functioning level in a filthy and chaotic two-bedroomed ninth-floor flat in Feltham.

The judge said that at the end of the summer of 2000, the couple had befriended and then been taken advantage of by a number of youths.

Some of the youths used their flat as as place at which to live, take drugs, engage in sexual activity and leave stolen goods.

In October, X was assaulted quite seriously in a MacDonald's restaurant by one of them, who believed he had "grassed" on him.

During the weekend of November 17 to 19, said the judge, the couple were "effectively imprisoned" in their own home and repeatedly assaulted and abused, often in the presence of the two children.

Three youths were subsequently convicted of criminal offences in relation to the incident and received custodial sentences.

"X said that at one stage the youths confined him and Y to their bedroom, and made them perform sexual acts.

"They threw many of X's and Y's possessions over the balcony. They forced pepper and fluid into X's eyes. They locked him in the bathroom for a time, in the dark.

"They made him drink urine, eat dog biscuits, dog faeces and the faeces of one of the youths, threatening him that he would be stabbed if he did not. They made him put a vibrator up his bottom, and then lick it.

"They sprayed kitchen cleaner in his mouth, face and hair. They slashed him repeatedly all over his body with a knife or knives."

Y told police that she too was made to put the vibrator in her mouth, while the children were also abused, assaulted and locked in their bedroom from time to time. Even the family dog was abused.

The judge said that liability for the physical and psychological injuries suffered by the couple, who now live in Epsom, Surrey, was "hotly in dispute", although damages had been agreed subject to that issue being resolved.

Lawyers for the couple had argued that the authority, through its social services and housing departments, was negligent in that it should have foreseen that X and Y were in imminent physical danger at the flat, and should have arranged for them to be accommodated elsewhere.

Hounslow denied that it owed the couple any duty of care, and pointed out that in no previous case had a local authority been held to be under a duty of care to protect vulnerable adults from abuse by third parties.

It denied any breach and said that what happened was not reasonably foreseeable.

In his ruling, the judge said that it was "clearly foreseeable" that either or both of the claimants would suffer a serious physical attack from local youths in their flat.

"In my judgment the danger of this happening should have been foreseen at the very latest by November 7 when, to the defendant's knowledge, the prior assaults, threats, infiltration of the claimants' home, dumping of stolen goods and arrests had been followed by the variety of complaints from neighbours."

He pointed out that Hounslow was aware of the couple's disabilities and provided them with social services, who were in regular contact and had visited the flat during 2000.

He found it "just, fair and reasonable" to impose on the local authority the duty of care contended for, and ruled that it was in breach of it.

It should have invoked its emergency procedure to remove the couple from their flat by November 7 at the latest and the fact this did not happen "pointed to and resulted from" a lack of proper cooperation and communication between the social services and housing departments, and a failure within those departments sufficiently to appreciate the gravity and urgency of the situation and to give the case the priority it deserved.

The judge said that he had come clearly to the conclusion that the authority's breach of its duty of care caused the injury and loss complained of.

"Self-evidently, had the claimants left their flat before the relevant weekend, the assault of which they complain would not have happened."