Failings From the Top
How would you feel if you
couldn’t return to your native country to live out the remainder of your life? Because a country you are not a citizen of
decided what was best for you with very little knowledge about you, your wishes
and your beliefs?
With many Dementia Patients,
they feel the need to feel safe and secure in a place they understand and a
language they speak. But doesn’t this
sentiment not apply to us all?
How, is the Court of
Protection and Social Services “safeguarding” the Subject in this case? What is the legal basis for their argument? And would the resources not have been better
placed looking at the failing care system rather than subjecting a 70year old
to this?
Why, did the Court of
Protection need Mrs Kirk to “go and retrieve” the Subject? Why was neither of them stopped at the
boarder before being allowed to leave?
Could it be because
1. The
Subject is in his home country and extradition needs to be agreed between the
parties involved?
2. They
could not be stopped because the subject holds a Portuguese Passport not a
British one.
I know my opinion, though former
Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming words it better “it stinks”.
Woman defied judge to take dementia patient to live in his native Portugal
A grandmother from Sussex has
been jailed for six months after taking an elderly man with dementia to a care
home in his native Portugal and refusing to bring him back to Britain. Teresa
Kirk, 71, was found guilty of contempt of court after disobeying orders for the
80-year-old man - identified only as MM - to be returned to the UK. The man,
born in Madeira, had lived in Devon for some 50 years and had a "large
circle of friends" but did not have the "capacity to make decisions
about his residence and care", according to court transcripts.
The legal issues began in 2014
after Kirk removed MM from his home to hers in the county. Then, last year they
went to Portugal and she admitted him to a care home, where he remains and Kirk
reportedly believed he was happy. However, this was in defiance of court orders
and social worker recommendations it was in the man's best interests to live in
a care home in south-west England.
Passing sentence at the Court
of Protection, Mr Justice Newton, said: "I am left with no alternative but
to pass a sentence of imprisonment, however much I have made it perfectly clear
that I do not wish to do so." The judge said Kirk has "deeply held,
sincere beliefs" and is "genuinely concerned" about the welfare
of MM but there had been a "long period" where she had
"successfully frustrated" court orders. The hearing was held at the
Court of Protection on August 18 but the transcripts were only released on the
court judgment website last week. The relationship between MM and Kirk cannot
be published for legal reasons.
A spokesman for the Courts and
Tribunals Judiciary reportedly said the online judgment had been held back from
publication ‘so an error could be amended’.
Open justice campaigner and
former Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming said: "What's very important about
this case is the public have no idea as to the validity of the reasoning for
the court order. I have a better understanding - and in my view it stinks. I
have been worried about secret imprisonments for some time. In this case the
judgment was held back from publication until some weeks after she was sent to
jail."
The sentence was originally
suspended for seven days to "give Mrs Kirk one last chance to
comply", according to the transcripts. It is understood she is being held
in Bronzefield prison in Surrey.
Wanda Maddocks, 50, from
Stoke-on-Trent was the first person known to be imprisoned by the Court of
Protection in 2012 after a judge ruled that she should go to prison for five
months for contempt of court after trying to remove her father from a care home
where his family thought he was in danger of dying.
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