‘Seldom does a parliamentary inquiry manage to uncover a national scandal on the terrifying scale of the one blazoned across yesterday’s Daily Mail front page under the headline ‘Prisoners of Care Homes’.
Astonishingly, this report by a House of Lords committee on the workings of the Blair government’s 2005 Mental Capacity Act found that ‘thousands, if not tens of thousands’ of old people have been forcibly incarcerated in care homes or hospitals against their wishes and are being ‘de facto detained unlawfully’.
At the heart of the scandal is the ultra-secretive Court of Protection, set up under the Act, which rules every year that thousands of people are deemed to ‘lack mental capacity’ — so that control of their lives and property can be handed over to social workers and other state officials.’
Read more: Read these stories of how the secret courts imprison the elderly in care homes against their will – and weep
