Mental illness and vulnerability

Mr Kruja was a refugee from Kosovo. He applied to Enfield council for housing because his family was homeless. There were no dependent children but Kruja said he had a priority need for housing because the family included his mentally ill and vulnerable adult son.

The council decided the family had no priority need and a review panel upheld that decision. On the medical evidence, Enfield had concluded the son was neither mentally ill nor vulnerable.

Kruja appealed to the local county court. A judge decided the council’s conclusion had been perverse because the evidence had been “all one way” to support the claim of mental illness and there was nothing to contradict that assertion. He quashed the council’s decision.

The Court of Appeal allowed a second appeal by the council. It decided that not all the evidence had suggested mental illness. There had been material going the other way. The judge had usurped the local authority’s fact-finding role and had failed to direct himself properly about vulnerability. In contrast, the authority had acted in accordance with a leading court case – R v Camden LBC ex p Pereira (1999) 31 HLR 317 – and had not reached an unreasonable decision on the information before it. The council’s decision was restored.