James Cleary has appeared in the High Court in a medical treatment case Nottinghamshire County Council v. J (The Mother) [2021] EWHC 1651 (Fam).
James appeared for a local authority applying for a declaration to authorise serious surgery on a fourteen-year-old boy, K. The local authority had to apply to the court, as K was a child in care and his parents did not agree to the surgery. K had significant health needs and his doctors were proposing to undertake invasive spinal surgery to improve his quality of his. The surgery however had risks which included possible disabling injury or even death. Having balanced the possible benefits and risks the court agreed that it was in K’s best interests for the surgery to take place.