High Court refuses local authority application for extension of deprivation of liberty order for 16-year-old convicted offender

In Jake (a child), Re [2025] EWHC 2230 (Fam) (27 August 2025), Mr Recorder Adrian Jack, sitting as a High Court judge, observed that the local authority's application raised a point as to “the interaction between the Court's powers under its inherent jurisdiction to exercise its powers of deprivation of liberty and the licensing regime for the release of young offenders.”

He concluded that in the present case, it was not for the High Court sitting in its parens patriae jurisdiction to “micro-manage” what a body such as the Youth Offender Team (YOT) might consider the “best course” for managing a particular young offender released into the community on licence.

The case concerned ‘J’, now aged sixteen years old. In 2024, he was convicted of three serious sexual offences and was sentenced to two and half years' custody.

J was released on licence in July 2025. The judge noted that he will remain on licence until late October 2026.

The week before J’s release, the applicant local authority sought an order authorising the deprivation of his liberty.

The High Court made a DOLs order the day before J’s release, with a hearing on 21 August 2025 to consider whether the order should be continued.

Outlining the background to the case, Mr Recorder Adrian Jack noted that J was released on licence in July 2025 after serving half the custodial period imposed by the Crown Court (credit being given for the period from April 2024, when he was on remand).

There are thirteen conditions of the licence. The first nine were summarised by the judge as follows:

(i) to be "of good behaviour and not behave in a way which undermines the purpose of the licence period";

(ii) not to commit any offence;

(iii) to keep in touch with his supervising officer;

(iv) to receive visits from his supervising officer;

(v) to reside permanently at a named address in [city] "and obtain the prior permission of the supervising officer for any stay of one or more nights at a different address";

(vi) not to undertake work, or a particular type of work, unless it is approved by the supervising officer;

(vii) not to travel outside the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man except with the prior permission of his supervising officer;

(viii) to tell his supervising officer if he uses a different name to that on the licence; and

(ix) to tell his supervising officer if he changes any contact details.

The judge added: “The remaining four I should quote in full, since the impact of these is controversial:

"(x) Confine yourself to an address approved by your supervising officer between the hours of 21:00 and 07:00 daily unless otherwise authorised by your supervising officer. This condition will be reviewed by your supervising officer on a monthly basis and may be amended or removed if it is felt that the level of risk that you present has reduced appropriately;

(xi) To comply with any requirements specified by your supervising officer for the purpose of ensuring that you address your sexual offending;

(xii) To comply with any requirements specified by your supervising officer to register and engage with an education provider;

(xiii) To comply with any requirements specified by your supervising officer to register and engage with housing/your support networks."

Outlining the local authority’s position, the judge noted that part of the council’s rationale in securing the DOLs order was due to J having been subject to secure restrictions for a significant period and there needing to be a “phased step down plan” with the ability for the DOLs Order to be implemented when needed to keep him safe if he places himself at risk in the community.

In its position statement, the local authority said: “The Local Authority recognises the draconian nature of the order but is concerned that [J’s] care regime could become unmanageable without the DOLs authorisation.

“To move from a sustained period in a secure environment to an environment free of restrictions without a step down plan could be detrimental to [J’s] welfare needs and increase the risk of him exposing himself to further harm and/or criminal activity/behaviours. There needs to be confidence in the plan, with gradual testing out of [J] having free time in the community before the restrictions can be removed completely and the Local Authority would therefore seek extension of the DOLs order for a further 6 weeks."

Discussing the case, Mr Recorder Adrian Jack said: “The key concern of the local authority is that under the licensing conditions [J] is free of any restraint between 7am and 9pm. Under the DOLs order, he is subject to one-to-one supervision during that period. At paragraph 9 of their position statement, the local authority say that ‘should [J] not engage with [the safety plan], there would be no legal mechanism or authority in which to prevent [J] from absconding or placing himself at risk.’

“In my judgment, this is not correct. It is true that a DOLs order is merely permissive: it allows the local authority to do something which, in the absence of the permission given by the DOLs order, they could not do. If [J] breaches the terms of the DOLs order, he is — not even theoretically — liable to contempt of court or any other Court-imposed sanction for beach of the DOLs order. The only consequence of breach is that the local authority can use limited physical force to ensure [J]’s compliance. It is in order to avoid the need to use physical force to prevent absconding, that DOLs orders regularly include provisions for locking doors and affixing restrictors to windows.”

He continued: “The absence of sanction is, however, quite different in relation to a breach of the licence conditions. If [J] fails during the day-time period to be "of good behaviour [or behaves] in a way which undermines the purpose of the licence period" then the consequences are draconian: he can be brought back to [the detention centre] and incarcerated until 29th October 2026. Likewise, if he absconds, the consequence is potentially imprisonment following the rescinding of his licence. This sanction is much more severe than putting restrictors on [J’s] bedroom windows and locking his doors.”

The judge concluded that the local authority failed to show “reasonable cause to believe” that [J] is likely to suffer significant harm in the absence of a DOLs order. He noted that the management of J by the YOT is “sufficient to exclude any reasonable cause for belief that [J] might suffer significant harm”.

He said: “I say this for three reasons. Firstly, the local authority are wrong in supposing that there will be no sanction if [J] absconds from his placement. On the contrary he has a very strong incentive not to, since, if he absconds, he is very likely to have his licence revoked. The same goes for the other terms of his licence. The local authority's view that there is no alternative to a DOLs order is severely undermined.

“Secondly, the licence conditions permit the form of ‘step-down’ which the local authority consider is desirable. There is no reason to suppose that the YOT are not cognisant [J]’s needs in this regard. Even if the YOT took the view that more freedom should be given to [J] than the local authority's social workers consider desirable, there are no grounds advanced to me on which any public law attack might be made in the King's Bench Division on any decision by the YOT to that effect. There is no reason to suppose that [J] will not receive appropriate support for addressing his sexual offending.

“Thirdly, in this case the primary organ of the state with responsibility for rehabilitating young offenders is [County] Youth Justice Services and the YOT responsible for [J]. The social work team of the local authority has only a secondary responsibility for [J]'s rehabilitation. It is not for the High Court sitting in its parens patriae jurisdiction to micro-manage what a body such as the YOT, which operates in a specialist area of the criminal justice system for young offenders, might consider the best course for managing a particular young offender released into the community on licence. There are no grounds for supposing that the YOT is not doing what it considers to be in [J]'s best interests. Thus the absence of evidence from [the YOT supervisor] is not in my judgment fatal to [J]'s and the Guardian's opposition to the local authority's application.”

Concluding the case, the judge refused to extend the DOLs order.

Lottie Winson