In Adegboyega v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024] EWHC 2365 (KB), the High Court has awarded £203,995 to a victim of the abuse at Brook House immigration removal centre. The judgment is a vindication of the bravery of detainees who came forward to participate and give evidence in the Brook House Inquiry and provides helpful guidance to those advising on quantum for unlawful detention and related breaches of human rights in context of immigration detention.

Useful guidance on false imprisonment

The basic award for 88 days unlawful detention was £35,000. Normally, damages for false imprisonment taper off steeply as the period of detention gets longer, but in this case the judge determined that there should be less of a taper because the detainee suffered a consistent level of psychological injury and distress throughout the period of detention. The HHJ Richard Roberts approach on this issue will be very helpful in future cases as the evidence often indicates that a detainee’s suffering is the same or even increases as the period of detention gets longer.

The judge awarded £15,000 in aggravated damages and a further £25,000 in exemplary damages. One of the factors relevant to the award of aggravated damages was the Home Office’s conduct in an earlier bail application.

Again, the judge’s decision to adopt of broad view of the ‘conduct of the litigation’ will be useful in future quantum disputes because the Home Office frequently relies upon statements in the bail summary which are later shown to be inaccurate or misleading.

Inquiry findings and article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights

Incredibly, the Home Office tried to dispute whether there had even been a breach of article 3 and argued that the court should not rely on the findings of the Brook House Inquiry. The judge was highly critical of the Home Office position, stating:

I find that the Defendant’s position on the Brook House Inquiry has been contradictory and unprincipled.

The judge noted that the government had broadly accepted the findings of the inquiry and therefore concluded that:

In the light of that admission by the Defendant, it is difficult to see how it can be contended that the Court should not place weight on the findings made by the Brook House Inquiry on the conditions of the Claimant’s unlawful detention at Brook House and his treatment there. However, I find that when considering specific incidents, such as the Claimant’s claim for trespass to the person on 5 June 2017, and the question of whether the Claimant has suffered psychiatric injury, I must reach my own findings based upon the evidence I have heard.

Damages for breach of article 3

Perhaps unsurprisingly given that ruling, the judge did find a breach of article 3 and relied closely on the findings of the Brook House Inquiry to award £26,000 for breach of article 3. The judge identified several aspects of the detention which led to a breach of article 3:

• Prison-like conditions
• Manifestly excessive time spent locked in his cell
• Complete lack of privacy when using the toilet
• Inadequate ventilation
• Unhygienic environment
• Exposure to illicit drug use
• Abusive language used by staff
• Excessive use of personal protective equipment such as riot shields
• Lack of safety from other detainees

The judge observed that these were all systemic violations and described them as “very grave and occurring on a daily basis”. The decision is finally a recognition of how bad conditions were at Brook House immigration removal centre, after failed attempts to raise the issue via judicial review proceedings in Hussein v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWHC 213 (Admin) and R (Soltany) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] EWHC 2291 (Admin).

Warning against double-counting

The claimant was also awarded significant damages for breach of his EEA rights. The judge declined to make a separate award for breach of article 8 on the basis that other awards had already addressed that breach. As in other areas of the judgment, the judge was careful to avoid double-counting and carefully delineated between different harms suffered by the claimant.

The judge’s approach illustrates the need to take a rigorous approach to assess quantum which will inevitable involve difficult judgement calls as many of the harms suffered by immigration detainees can be compensated under different heads of damage.