TNN and another -v- London Borough of Ealing (anonymity order)
Claim number: AC-2025-LON-002539
In the High Court of Justice
King’s Bench Division
Administrative Court
27 August 2025
Before:
Judge Alan Bates
Between:
1) TNN (a child by their mother and litigation friend PCN)
(2) TDN (a child by their mother and litigation friend PCN)
-v-
London Borough of Ealing
and
London North West ICB NHS
(Interested party)
Order
Notification of the Judge’s Decision on permission to apply for judicial review (CPR 23.12, 54.11, 54.12)
Following consideration of the documents lodged by the Claimant, and the “Written Comments” (dated 6 August 2025) lodged by the Defendant
ORDER BY ALAN BATES, SITTING AS A DEPUTY JUDGE OF THE HIGH COURT
1. Anonymity:
(a) Pursuant to CPR 39.2(4) and/or the Court’s inherent jurisdiction and/or s. 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998:
(i) the names of the Claimants and their Litigation Friend are to be withheld from the public and must not be disclosed in any proceedings in public;
(ii) in these proceedings, the following ciphers are to be used for referring to the Claimants and their Litigation Friend, whether orally or in writing –
– the First Claimant is to be referred to as “TNN”
– the Second Claimant is to be referred to as “TDN”
– the Litigation Friend is to be referred to as “PCN”.
b) Pursuant to CPR 5.4C(4):
(i) if any statement of case filed after the date of this Order includes information likely to lead to the identification of a Claimant or the Litigation Friend, a redacted copy omitting that information must be filed at the same time;
(ii) unless the Court grants permission under CPR 5.4C(6), no non-party may obtain a copy of any statement of case unless that document does not reveal the name, address, date of birth, or email address of any Claimant or of the Litigation Friend, or it is a redacted version from which all such information has been removed.
(c) Any person wishing to vary or discharge this Order must make an application, served on each party.
2. Permission:
(a) Permission to apply for judicial review is refused.
(b) The claim is certified as totally without merit.
3. Costs: No order for costs.
4. Further provision as to costs: The costs order in paragraph 3 shall be a final order.
Reasons
(1) I have considerable sympathy for the Claimants’ mother (the Litigation Friend) and other family members who are involved in providing care and education for the Claimants. It is not easy to care for one, let alone two, children with substantial special educational needs and/or disabilities (“SEND”). Dealings with the local authority and other ‘officialdom’ can sometimes be time-consuming and frustrating.
(2) That natural sympathy cannot, however, properly lead me to grant permission to apply for judicial review for this claim. It is a basic requirement that such a claim: (a) target a specific decision or action by the defendant authority which is alleged to be unlawful; (b) identify with specificity the legal basis for the allegation that the specific targeted decision/ action is unlawful; and (c) provide evidence, usually by way of a witness statement verified by a statement of truth, which sets out, clearly and in sufficient detail, the facts relied upon for establishing that alleged unlawfulness. Absent compliance with those basic requirements, a judicial review claim does not have a realistic prospect of success.
(3) The material submitted on behalf of the Claimants, though voluminous, does not do those things. Rather, the claim is in the nature of an ‘omnibus’ for the Litigation Friend’s many and various complaints about the Defendant’s conduct, positions, alleged administrative failings, unreasonableness, and general approach to providing support for the Claimants. Further, those complaints relate to the various provisions made, or to be made, for each of the Claimants, i.e. two different children, each of whom has their own individual needs and legal entitlements. As a result, the Statement of Grounds raises a diffuse litany of complaints which cannot realistically be adjudicated upon as a judicial review claim.
(4) Further, it appears that at least some of the complaints are of a kind which would be more appropriately pursued through another channel, such as a ‘customer service’- type complaint under the Defendant’s complaints procedures, a claim in the county court for monies contractually owed, or a complaint to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman. Other complaints are ones that relate to disagreements as to the precise means (rather than whether) the Defendant should deliver the supports set out in the First Claimant’s Education Health and Care Plan (“EHCP”); those are disagreements which are unlikely to be suitable for resolution in judicial review proceedings and should, if possible, be pursued through mediation using a SEND mediation scheme.
(5) I appreciate that the Litigation Friend has previously utilised the Defendant’s complaints procedure for raising various matters and that she ultimately exhausted that procedure without obtaining the result she wanted. Insofar as the Litigation Friend wishes to challenge a final stage complaints decision by way of a judicial review claim, however, then she could have brought a claim challenging that specific decision (and nothing else). It is unrealistic and inappropriate to seek to pursue such matters by including it amongst a large number of other complaints, and attempt to pursue all of them as a single judicial review claim.
(6) The First Claimant’s Grounds 1 to 4, and the Second Claimant’s Grounds 1 and 2, are the Grounds that appear to me to come closest (relatively speaking) to constituting a realistic ground for judicial review. The articulation of even those Grounds, however, is by way of a combination of references to statutory provisions establishing a duty, and broad assertions that those duties have been breached, without explication and substantiation of the underlying allegations of fact. There is no witness statement setting out, with cross-referencing to supporting material, the specific facts relied on as the basis for those assertions (such as the witness’s narrative account of the facts linked to the relevant Ground). The “Risk-Harm Evidence Matrix” tables which are set out within the Statement of Grounds do not provide any narrative but are simply a list of unexplained cross-references to pages in multiple other documents (which, once located, often do not appear clearly and obviously to support the relevant assertion in the table). Such a list falls far short of articulating an arguable factual and legal case that there has been a specific decision or action, or a specific failure to act, on the part of the Defendant that has constituted a breach of its public law duties.
(7) Further, although the Defendant admits that it has, in certain respects, not been delivering the full support package detailed in the Fist Claimant’s EHCP (as the Defendant is legally required so to do), the Defendant’s case is that it has been prevented and/or seriously impeded from doing so by the actions of, and unreasonable positions taken by, the Litigation Friend. If the Defendant’s case is factually true, then it would be inappropriate for the Court to grant relief for such non-delivery of support, especially upon judicial review proceedings that are effectively being driven by the Litigation Friend. The Litigation Friend knows that this is the Defendant’s case, since this was explained in the Defendant’s Pre-Action Protocol response provided by its solicitors, Weightmans LLP. Yet the Claimants’ claim materials do not include any witness statement or other evidence from the Litigation Friend responding to that element of the Defendant’s case.
(8) In my view, it is incumbent on a claimant bringing a judicial review claim to file a set of claim materials which enables the Court to understand the grounds of claim, the detailed factual (as well as legal) basis for each ground, and to assess whether each ground has a realistic prospect of success. As the Claimants have not, in my view, met that basic requirement in relation to any of their proposed Grounds, it follows that: (a) none of the Grounds has a realistic prospect of success; and (b) further and for the same reasons, the claim as a whole is totally without merit.
(9) That is not to say definitively that there is no reasonable basis for any of the complaints being made by way of the Grounds. It is possible that certain of those complaints might relate to a matter which could constitute an arguable ground for judicial review. But the claim is totally without merit because the way it has been brought and articulated is such that the Court is unable to understand the factual basis for any of the Grounds sufficiently to assess that Ground as having a realistic prospect of success.
(10) If the Litigation Friend wishes to pursue (whether herself, or on behalf of either of the present Claimants) any further judicial review claim, then it is imperative that she adopt a more realistic approach, by: (a) identifying a single specific decision, action, or failure to act, as being the matter to be challenged; (b) providing a legal case, supported by a detailed factual witness statement, which together constitutes a properly focused, comprehensible, and efficient exposition of a claim suitable for resolution using the judicial review procedure; and (c) show that she has already exhausted any alternative routes to remedy (whether judicial or non-judicial) which she might reasonably have pursued prior to, or instead of, bringing a judicial review claim.
(11) Costs: The Defendant promptly and helpfully filed “Written Comments” (dated 6 August 2025) pursuant to the Order of Kerr J dated 1 August 2025. However: (i) that document was not accompanied by a statement of the costs incurred in preparing that document; and (ii) the Defendant has not had to file, and has not filed, an Acknowledgement of Service and Summary Grounds of Defence. The Claimants are both children who have SEND, and they are unlikely to have had any control over whether, or how, the claim was brought, so it may be unfair to impose costs orders on them. In the circumstances, I have exercised my discretion to make no order for costs in this case. In my view, the expenditure of court time and further costs, as would be driven if any other costs order were made, would not be proportionate, having regard to the small amount of costs likely to have so far been incurred by the Defendant. The further costs that would be driven by such an order would include, for example, costs occasioned by my inviting submissions upon, and determining, costs issues, such as whether a costs award should be made, assessment of the amount of the Defendant’s costs, and determining whether the Litigation Friend should be ordered to pay those costs.
(12) Civil restraint order: As I have found the claim to be totally without merit, I am required to consider whether to make a civil restraint order to restrain the bringing of further court proceedings (CPR 23.12). On this occasion, I have not made any civil restraint order, given that: (a) I have no information as to any other proceedings having been brought by the Litigation Friend, whether on behalf of these Claimants or otherwise, which were totally without merit; and (b) the Litigation Friend has been acting without the assistance of solicitors, and may not have understood how she needed to frame and articulate a judicial review claim in order for that claim to be recognised as having merit.
(13) Anonymity: As these proceedings relate to matters of some sensitivity relating to the needs of children, I have considered, of my own motion, whether an anonymity order is appropriate. I have made such an order in terms I consider proportionate and appropriate for I have made such an order in terms I consider proportionate and appropriate for protecting the children’s privacy, and I am satisfied that this constitutes a proportionate incursion upon the principle of open justice.