Robert Robinson has been a solicitor with Scomo for over 15 years specialising in mental health law. He has represented detained patients in mental health review tribunals and have also acted in mental incapacity cases, notably Bournewood where he represented the claimant, and in a number of claims for judicial review.

Up to 2004 Robert was a member of the Mental Health Act Commission. Since 1999 he has been a part-time legal member of the Mental Health Review Tribunal in addition to chairing four independent inquiries into homicides by psychiatric patients. He regularly provide training on mental health law to lawyers, social workers and psychiatrists, and contributes a regular mental health law update to Legal Action magazine. His notable cases include:

• In a landmark ruling given on 5th October 2004 the European Court of Human Rights held that the admission under common law of an autistic man, referred to as H.L., to a Surrey hospital managed by Bournewood NHS Trust was in breach of his rights under Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The case, in which Robert Robinson represented H.L., has implications for other people who lack mental capacity to consent to medical treatment. Following the ruling, if psychiatric hospital admission deprives such a person of their liberty they are entitled to the same legal safeguards as people formally detained ("sectioned") under the Mental Health Act.

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