Council faces child housing questions

The teenager who died threw herself out of the window of a flat in Coleraine Road, Blackheath, which had been allocated to Oluwakemi Ajose. Ms Ajose was 17 at the time of the incident, in May last year.

Ms Ajose and Hatice Can, who was 13 at the time, were found guilty of the manslaughter of Rosimeiri Boxall, 19, last month and will be sentenced on 15 December. The pair had bullied Ms Boxall who then jumped out of a second-floor window.

But the revelation that Ms Ajose was housed in the property by the council’s housing department raises questions about whether she should have been there at all.

Ms Ajose was housed on 13 May last year, three months after a House of Lords case in February ruled Hammersmith & Fulham Council should have cared for a 16-year-old girl instead of housing her in temporary hostels and hotels.

At the time of that case Baroness Hale of Richmond stated: ‘Local children’s authorities cannot avoid their responsibilities towards this challenging group by passing them over to the local housing authorities.’

A spokesperson for Greenwich Council said the Blackheath property provided seven flats of short-term accommodation for ‘young adults’ aged 16 years and over. It had no staff based in the building and it was not a social services facility, she confirmed.

Another Greenwich spokesperson said it had decided to house Ms Ajose in the property after working with NHS Oxleas Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.

She said it was for the ‘competent agency to say what kind of accommodation was suitable’ and that in this case the main agency was the NHS mental health service.

But Chris Callender, assistant director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: ‘Sixteen and 17-year-olds are children and should be treated as such by their local authority. Temporary accommodation is unsuitable for young people in difficulty and often exacerbates their problems.’

Katherine Hill, parliamentary adviser for the Children’s Society, said: ‘It is wholly unacceptable that 16 and 17-year-olds continue to be treated less favourably than younger children by children’s services.

‘Placing young people in unsuitable temporary accommodation is a form of institutional age discrimination.’

John Hills, Conservative councillor for healthier communities at the Labour-led Greenwich local authority, added: ‘[Councils] should not put vulnerable people around that age into unsupervised accommodation.’

A spokesperson from Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust said: ‘Where there are housing issues involving any young person who is using Oxleas services, we work with the relevant agencies, such as housing, to help decide on the most appropriate accommodation for the individual.’

A second case in the House of Lords, involving Southwark Council, this year reinforced the previous ruling. Greenwich refused to comment on whether it had changed its policies as a result of either ruling.

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