‘Locked up far from my family’: The teens in care detained by law

At the age of 14, Katy Baxter was detained alone under a court order, far from her Bournemouth home, supervised by two workers 24 hours a day, going for long periods without any contact with her family.

“I wanted to see my nan and my sister. I couldn’t even call them because I wasn’t allowed a phone,” she tells the BBC. “It made me mad… angry.”

Katy, now 18, is one of thousands of children in England and Wales – at least one as young as seven – to have been placed under what are known as Deprivation of Liberty (DoL) orders.

The BBC has interviewed several young people who were subject to DoLs and are now speaking publicly about their experiences for the first time.

They told us stories of being cut off from their families, kept permanently under surveillance and subject to brutal – sometimes inappropriate – restraint.

All said the experience had had a detrimental impact on their long-term wellbeing.

A local authority can apply to the Family Court to impose a DoL order on a child if they are deemed to be at serious risk – either from themselves or others – and if depriving them of their liberty is seen as the only way they can be kept safe.

The measure is intended as a last resort when secure accommodation or placements are not immediately available.

A DoL order may be extremely restrictive. The child can be confined and kept under constant supervision by workers, who may be authorised to physically restrain them.

Many find themselves living in properties not designed for care, including temporary accommodation or even hotels, in unfamiliar locations. In the second half of 2022, the average DoL placement was more than 55 miles away from the child’s home, external.

Use of the orders – which has grown twelve-fold since 2018 – has been heavily criticised by England’s most senior family judge, who has told us the situation represented a “crisis”.

His concern is echoed by the children’s commissioner for England who says their impact has been “absolutely horrific” and a “national scandal”.