Lucy Series

I just discovered that in Harvard citation you *don't* italicise the case names, but you *do* italicise the statutes. This feels as wrong as going to work in your pyjamas! I don't love Oscola, but apparently, bits of it, I do.

Book review: Beautiful Lives: How We Got Learning Disabilities So Wrong, by Stephen Unwin This blog post features a review of this book by learning disability campaigner, Simon Cramp. I will give you the publisher’s description of Stephen Unwin’s book first, and then Simon’s review. Wil…

Read Simon Cramp's review of Stephen Unwin's book, Beautiful Lives: How we got learning disability so wrong. Thanks Simon! thesmallplaces.wordpress.com/2025/10/22/b...
@sime50.bsky.social @stephenunwin.bsky.social

Thanks Tom, that means a lot. I met a really cool Singaporean academic yesterday who writes about civil disobedience and also mental capacity law. I told him to look you up!

Thank you!

Many thanks to whoever nominated it and the prize committee.. I'm honoured and grateful.

I'm a huge admirer of Townsend, as a scholar and a person. He pops up lots in my research and teaching. He'd have had a lot of helpful things to say about why we have ended up in a situation where hundreds of thousands of people live in carceral care settings, and what we might *do* about it.

The British Academy Peter Townsend Prize The Peter Townsend Prize, worth £1,000, is awarded biennially for outstanding work with policy relevance on a topic to which Townsend made a major contribution.

I'm somewhat bowled over by this - my book, Deprivation of Liberty in the Shadows of the Institution, won the British Academy Peter Townsend Prize for outstanding work with social policy relevance www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/prizes-medal...

Revisiting Cheshire West As you may have heard, in October the UK Supreme Court will her a case that will re-open consideration of what it means to be ‘deprived of your liberty’ if you may lack the mental capacity to conse…

Revisiting Cheshire West - my thoughts on the upcoming Supreme Court case about 'valid consent' and deprivation of liberty thesmallplaces.wordpress.com/2025/09/30/r...

Revisiting Cheshire West As you may have heard, in October the UK Supreme Court will her a case that will re-open consideration of what it means to be ‘deprived of your liberty’ if you may lack the mental capacity to conse…

Revisiting Cheshire West - my thoughts on the upcoming Supreme Court case about 'valid consent' and deprivation of liberty

thesmallplaces.wordpress.com/2025/09/30/r...

Devastated to hear about Conor Gearty's sudden death. I had the privilege of getting to know him working on statutory amendments to try and ensure the Human Rights Act applies whenever health and social care it outsourced by the state. We'll continue that work in his memory.

Wonderful tributes from colleagues at Matrix chambers for Professor Conor Gearty.

Also why is nobody higher up the foodchain collecting data on s117 aftercare and exploring how the cost is (often unfairly) split between LA's and the NHS?!

Mental health twitter - here's a totally invalid straw poll. Roughly what proportion of people discharged from detention under the MHA who are technically *eligible* for s117 aftercare actually get it? And roughly how many of these get short-term v long-term support?

But in that case, the practitioners had discussed the treatment (HRT) with the woman, and knew she didn't want it. What about situations where treatment never discussed with the person at all? Presumably that wouldn't be lawful under the MCA?

I've found this case about covert medication, where EWCA doesn't reject it in principle www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWC... and I've also found the CQC guidance referenced in that case (though can't see where the NICE guidelines endorse covert medication under the MCA...?)

Folks, can anyone point me to any key cases or guidance on the covert administration of medication under a) MCA and b) MHA? I'm struggling to see how it could be lawful under MCA without COP's powers, as you can't really assess capacity without telling someone what you plan to do...

If you highlight sections, and you have the desktop version as well, you can then directly copy/paste into your articles when quoting them... (It certainly beats my books full of ragged yellow post-it notes and marginalia!)

I published an article recently, and re-reading it have noticed an embarrassing number of typos crept in. The copy-editing process was super-rushed and I found the publisher's interface really hard on the eyes, and I didn't check as well as I should have done. Is it too late to fix this...?!

I have to get my books on Kindle now for that reason! Also because Kindle's annotation function is brilliant, and becasue I can read it the dark without bothering others! Can't help with the pictures...

Scrapping EHCPs in mainstream schools risks leaving a generation of SEND children excluded from education, chaos in classrooms, more pressure on schools, teachers, and all kids and parents. All of this will carry even greater human, financial and social costs in the long run

This article by @johnharris1969.bsky.social on the SEND changes is why I signed the letter. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Ach. Yes. Good luck.

I'm so sorry Tom you're new department is caught up in this. That's really shitty. Hold strong - friends and former colleagues at Cardiff managed to get many of the cuts mitigated (though sadly not all).

Aha, 16,400 detained in hospital, so roughly 70% of the total inpatient mental health beds

Do you know if there's a way to get the Power BI tool to exclude CTOs and conditional discharge and guardianship? (i.e. just keep hospital patients)?

It did sound higher than I was expecting

Ah of course!! Thannks

Here's the dataset I'm using app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrI...

I'm trying to calculate how many people (England) are 'informal' (i.e. not detained under the MHA) mental health inpatients. The MHSMS dataset says there are 22,764 people subject to MHA at the moment, and 23,595 in hospital beds. So 96% detained under MHA. Does that sound right to you MH people?

Just reading the GMC guidance, then the NMC guidance, on consent, and really, the NMC guidance is just so scant and rubbish... That really does need addressing.