Injunctions against children

The council was granted a suspended possession order against one of its tenants. The tenant's partner and her two sons were also defendants.

The council then applied both for an antisocial behaviour injunction and an antisocial behaviour order against one of the sons, G, a 13-year old boy.

The ASBO was refused, because the council could not show that it had complied with police consultation requirements.

But the injunction was granted, attaching a power of arrest and endorsed with the usual "penal notice" warning of committal to prison as a sanction for breach of the order. G successfully appealed. The appeal judge decided that the injunction should never have been granted because it could not be properly or effectively enforced.

The available sanctions are normally prison, a fine or taking away assets ("sequestration").

But a child like G could not be sent to prison. There was no evidence that he had any income, savings or other assets.

If an authority wants an injunction against a child, it needs to demonstrate that the personal circumstances of the child make a fine or sequestration an effective sanction.