£10k payout to Down’s Syndrome patient banned from sex with wife

A DOwn’S Syndrome patient was awarded £10,000 in compensation after social workers ordered his wife not to have sex with him.

The ban was imposed after the couple applied for fertility treatment and a psychologist ruled the husband did not have the mental capacity to consent to sex.

Social workers told his wife that if she had sex with her 38-year-old husband she would be committing an offence carrying a maximum 14-year-jail sentence.

In a case described as ‘unique’, Court of Protection judge Sir Mark Hedley ordered the council which employed the social workers to pay compensation.

The award was made not because of the social workers’ threat or impact on their sex life, but because the council delayed providing the husband with sex education.

A sex education course would have given him the capacity to consent to sex, the psychologist had said. But the council only belatedly provided the course in June last year. Sir Mark did not name the couple or the council involved.

In his ruling, given at the High Court in Leeds and published yesterday, he said: ‘Many would think that no couple should have to undergo this highly intrusive move on their personal privacy yet such move was entirely lawful and properly motivated.’

It meant the couple’s sex life came to an end for two years in March 2015 – even though they were in a settled relationship. The wife was told that if she continued to have sex with her husband, social workers would take ‘safeguarding measures’ to remove either him or her from the home they shared with his parents.

She moved into a separate bedroom, a decision her husband could not understand. The judge said: ‘In order not to lead him on, she significantly reduced any physical expressions of affection. The impact of all this on the husband is not difficult to imagine.’

After a course of sex education the husband made progress in nearly all areas.

But the couple were not given permission to have sex again until after a further psychiatrist’s report and a court ruling forced social workers to change their minds.

They were told they could resume ‘a normal conjugal relationship’ this May.

Sir Mark ordered £10,000 to be paid to the husband, of which £2,000 will go towards an en suite bathroom for the couple’s bedroom. Their legal costs will also be paid by the council.