Kevyn Mondz has been a deputyship client of Paula Curran’s for a number of years.  Kevyn’s accident was 1st August 1999 in France when he was 10 years old.  He was a pedestrian and was knocked over crossing the road.  He was airlifted over the border into Switzerland to Geneva. He spent 3 weeks in intensive care. He was in a coma. He had brain surgery and operations on his broken leg.  He was then transferred by air back to UK. He was still in a coma. He spent 5 months in Southampton hospital as an ‘in’ patient, then he returned to hospital every day for a further 7 months for him to have treatments, therapies and schooling.  He had to learn to walk, to talk, to swallow, to read etc. The family comment on how it was a long journey.

At the time they were fortunate to have family legal protection on their house insurance so they immediately contacted the insurers, and they put them in touch with a French speaking solicitor in London. She put the case together which took 12 years to conclude, by which time Kevyn was 22.

When it came to receiving the settlement,  the French would not pay the funds to Kevyn directly and it had to be either a trust or the court. A deputyship order was set up with Kevyn’s mum as the only deputy and introduced to Frenkel Topping for financial advice and the relationship with Frenkel Topping started in 2011.

Paula has been working with the family since 2016 and over that time Kevyn has gone from saying hello and running back upstairs to being more involved with the meetings and 2023 his first property was purchased where he can spend time away from the family but it is close enough that he can come home for meals and getting his washing done.

In order to obtain court permission to buy the property a law firm was introduced to Kevyn and his family as at this time his mum, Barbara, was still the sole deputy and the order did not allow for the purchase of a property.  It was agreed that a professional deputy would also be added to support the family.  Unfortunately the relationship broke down between the professional deputy and the family and last year the question was raised about whether the professional was needed and if Kevyn’s brother and father could be added as additional deputy’s to support Barbara.

Paula introduced the family to Simon Heapy from Spall Clark Solicitors to help support the family make the changes to the deputyship order and in the initial meetings Kevyn’s capacity was discussed.  The family have always felt that as time went by and Kevyn grew up he was more capable than he was labelled. They were just not sure how to go about it proving this.

Over a series of video meetings between Simon and the family, Simon suggested that Kevyn had a capacity assessed. Previously his capacity had only been assessed by a GP and Simon suggested an independent professional assessor to review Kevyn.

Simon said that he didn’t think Kevyn should ever have been labelled ‘the patient’ and it was very clear how much Kevyn was engaged with the meetings and his future.

The process was costly, however the family felt that if they did not give it a try then they would never know.

Kevyn was assessed in June 2024 and was found to have capacity. Kevyn and his family were then able to make the application to the courts to have him discharged from the COP and to set up a Personal Injury Trust.

The capacity assessment did ask Kevyn numerous questions about the accident, his life then and over the years and his current situation.  Whilst he was not deemed as able to fully take control over all aspects of his life it was still felt that he understood sufficient to no longer need to COP protection.

What this has meant for the family is that they are able to still maintain control over Kevyn and his finances and support him going forward it has provided more flexibility and control for Kevyn to continue to take charge of his life.

It took the best part of 2024 for this to all come together and we are currently in the process of transferring all the investments to the trust.  From recent meetings with the family you can see how this small change to Kevyn’s life has really given him the strength to believe in himself and he no longer runs away from annual review meetings but takes control over what is being discussed about his future.