Section 135(2): Warrant to enter and remove a mentally disordered person from their home who is liable for detention

 

The last post looked at s.135(1). This one is looking at s.135(2).

The Code of Practice states that the purpose of a s.135(2) warrant is to provide police officers with a power of entry to private premises for the purposes of removing a patient who is liable to be taken or returned to hospital or any other place or into custody under the Act.

Unlike s.135(1), almost anyone can apply to a magistrate for a s.135(2) warrant. It could be an AMHP, but it can also be a police officer, a clinical member of the community mental health time, or a nurse from the hospital.

The warrant applies to anyone who is liable to be detained, for example:

Someone who has been assessed and an application made under s.2 or s.3

Someone already detained in hospital but who has absconded or who has failed to return from s.17 leave

Someone subject to a Community Treatment Order who has been recalled to hospital

It should be established that the patient is refusing to be admitted or to return to hospital and that they’re refusing entry to their home.

Although it only requires a police officer to attend, in practice an AMHP or a member of a community team or hospital would also accompany the police officer. An ambulance should be arranged to transport the patient. Normally, the police officer’s role would end once entry has been made and the patient located.

As with s.135(1), the application has to be made to a magistrate.

It is commonly thought that, as in the case of s.135(1), only an AMHP can make this application.

But it is not the case. Almost anyone else can make the application, although an AMHP service may kindly advise someone from a hospital or community mental health team on the local procedures for applying for a warrant.