West Northamptonshire Council to pay teen fleeing domestic abuse after failing to provide temporary accommodation

A Northamptonshire council has apologised after an 18-year-old fleeing domestic abuse from his family home was forced to sleep in his car for weeks, despite reaching out to the council’s homelessness team.

The man went to West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) for help at the end of July after his mother assaulted him whilst he was staying with family. He told the council he had to attend hospital for his injuries and couldn’t return home.

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGO) said the council’s failure to carry out proper enquiries resulted in him having nowhere to stay, causing “significant injustice”. It also found that the incident shows the council “does not fully understand” the definition of domestic abuse.

The council has offered a “sincere apology” and is reviewing procedures to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

WNC initially housed the teenager, referred to as ‘Mr X’, and carried out further enquiries with the police assigned to the case. The officer involved felt he had exaggerated the event and that his mother did not want him back “due to his own behaviour”.

The council then informed the man they did not believe he was in priority need and asked him to leave the temporary accommodation. According to the Ombudsman, the authority told him: “In some respects, these rows and behaviours resemble domestic abuse, however they must be distinguished from that when seen in the context of other evidence and when that evidence does not show patterns of abusive behaviour or violence’’.

Mr X said this meant he was homeless, incurred debt and had to sleep in his car for a fortnight. He also says he experienced severe distress at a time that was already extremely difficult.

After requesting a review and speaking to the homelessness outreach team of his own accord, Mr X was approved temporary accommodation for the remaining month until he his accommodation, which he already had sorted, became available.

The local authority watchdog said that the council’s initial response to the homelessness application shows that it “does not fully understand” the definition of domestic abuse. It also found that it did not take “reasonable steps” to investigate the situation.

It continued: “I am satisfied that if the council had carried out proper enquiries on Mr X’s application in line with the Code, it is likely the council would have identified the facts of the case earlier. Failure to do this was fault by the council, resulting in Mr X having nowhere to stay.

“The decision-making was so poor on this occasion that I will recommend a remedy for the distress caused. At the time, Mr X was a vulnerable 18-year-old young man who was left to sleep in his car for two weeks after being a victim of domestic abuse. The fault by the council caused Mr X significant injustice.”

West Northamptonshire Council has agreed to make a payment of £750 and apologise to the complainant within four weeks. It will also review how staff record assessments for domestic abuse when completing homelessness applications and provide training on the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 to all housing staff within the next few months.

Councillor Adam Brown, Deputy Leader of WNC and Cabinet Member for Housing, Culture and Leisure, said: “The council would like to offer a sincere apology for failing to deliver the support required by the resident and I have reached out to the resident personally to offer my own apology, having supported him as much as possible during his interactions with the council.

“While everyone at WNC works very hard to deliver the highest quality service possible, we accept the recommendations of the ombudsman and we are reviewing our procedures to make sure this doesn’t happen again. I have also requested a thorough debrief from senior officers on lessons learned so that I can be assured that the organisation is responding appropriately.”