A gifted child in a psychiatric unit is madness

Of all the 100 or more “child protection” cases I have covered over the years, scarcely any has been odder or more troubling than one I have been following in the past two weeks. It centres on a boy, now nearly 16, who has suffered since birth from a series of complex physical disabilities. But mentally, as if in compensation, he is exceptionally bright.

In childhood his intelligence was twice rated by psychologists as in the top 0.002 per cent of the population. Thanks to his parents he was, until recently, given a first-rate education. At a school for gifted children he was ranked with those older than him. When his physical problems worsened, he was educated at home by his mother, with the aid of specialist tutors.

He won a place at a public school, and hoped to read physics or chemistry at university. He has also self-educated through books and the internet, among much else learning several languages, including Japanese and Hindi. He has also bonded with a circle of other very bright boys, older than himself, with whom he kept in constant touch through his phone, discussing everything from world politics to quantum physics.

Then last year his education ceased, when he was removed from his family and placed alone in a strange “respite home”, where at least he was able to keep in constant touch with his parents and friends. But last week even this came to an end, when he was forcibly taken to a secure “psychiatric unit”, specialising in “children with mental health problems”, mainly much younger girls suffering from anorexia.

Far from having any “mental problems”, the boy is the very opposite, and highly articulate. But his iPad and iPhone, I gather, have been confiscated, and he has been told he is now only allowed books suitable for the youngest children. He cannot be visited by his friends, and his mother has been told that she may never see him again.

The need to move him to this place so urgently, when his only wish was to return home, was that the unit’s rules don’t allow it to admit any children after their 16th birthday, which in his case is next month.

The most quoted words from the Children Act, under which all this has been done, are those usually paraphrased as “the interests of the child are paramount”. It would be hard to explain to this hyperintelligent young man how this could possibly apply to his present plight.

‘The boy is highly intelligent and articulate. But he is only allowed books suitable for the youngest children’