Girl in care fled from moving vehicle

A new volume of reports into cases involving children who need special intervention has told how one girl fled secure care by jumping from a moving car, while a boy with behavioural problems was living in a homeless hostel.

The latest volume of reports by the Child Care Law Reporting Project also highlights a disproportionate number of children from ethnic minority backgrounds coming before the courts, and a shortage of special care beds.

A number of new reports are published in this volume on childlawproject.ie today, 14 of which were in the High Court or involved children under the jurisdiction of the High Court.

Another 18 involved cases where one or both parents were immigrants, or where the child was an unaccompanied migrant child.

Among the more serious cases is one in which a sitting of the High Court Minors’ List heard that a girl in secure care had absconded from a moving car during an outing the previous weekend. T

here had been two adults in the car with her at the time, and the girl was still missing three days later. A media alert had to be issued as she had gone missing previously.

The judge in the case said “opening the door of a car while it was moving along and to jump out or fall out seemed to be one of the escape routes” being used by children in special care.

“I would have thought that security would have seen to it that there were child-locks in the car or a car with no back door, you may pass on my views,” he told the barrister for the Child and Family Agency, “as there are a number of these escapes”.

In another case a teenage boy was living in a homeless hostel, despite Tusla having given an undertaking to the High Court that its National Referral and Applications Committee would consider an application for special care for him “in accordance with the law”.

The boy’s mother had earlier brought a judicial of an earlier decision by the committee not to recommend an application for special care.

The boy had a history of violent and criminal behaviour and his guardian ad litem said he “had never come across anyone as dangerous”.

The judge ultimately directed that Tusla give €35,000 to the child’s guardian ad litem to fund a suitable placement, which was then secured.

In a case involving another boy, two judicial reviews were held before a judge said Tusla’s failure to seek a special care order for him was unlawful.

There had been no available bed in special care and the Child and Family Agency service director initially decided not to make a formal declaration that the child needed special care, which would lead to an application to the High Court for a special care order.

There are just 26 secure care beds in the State, with only 14 of them are available, mainly due to staffing problems, and CCLRP director, Carol Coulter, said: “As some High Court judges have stressed, the lack of secure beds must be resolved and the necessary resources provided so that they can be properly staffed, with incentives if necessary. Deficiencies in our mental health legislation also must be addressed so that all children in need of appropriate psychiatric and therapeutic care can receive it in this country.”

In another case, involving four children and allegations of sexual abuse, care orders were granted after 100 days of hearings over a three-and-a-half-year period.