Here, we look at the practicalities involved in getting a good medico-legal report. We have previously explained what a medico-legal report is and that article should be read alongside this one. These reports can be a game changer in cases involving v ...

Staff working at Brook House immigration removal centre were verbally and physically abusive towards the people who were detained, including the use of extremely racist language. There were 19 incidents of inhuman and degrading treatment of people at ...

A Scottish Fatal Accident Inquiry has held that a number of defects in the system of working in Dungavel Immigration Removal Centre led to the death of a 54-year old Chinese man which could have reasonably been avoided. A Fatal Accident Inquiry, simil ...

In January this year, the Home Office updated its guidance on reporting conditions, again. Version 6 was published on 19 January 2023, replacing version 5 which was in place for less than six months, from 30 June 2022. Version 5 Version 5 was very muc ...

As the House of Common’s second reading of the Illegal Migration Bill takes place today, this post looks at the detention provisions in clauses 11-14 and what they mean for individuals arriving in the UK. You can read Colin’s analysis of the Bill ...

This post provides an update on legal challenges to the Home Office’s policy and practice of requiring people on immigration bail to wear Global Positioning System (GPS) devices. You can read more about the policy and the legal framework here and he ...

Yesterday, the third annual inspection from the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI) of ‘Adults at risk in immigration detention’ was published. On the same day, the Home Secretary discontinued the standing commission for ...

A new report has been published this morning by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons on the controversial short term holding facility for refugees at Manston in Kent. The inspection took place in late July 2022, before the current Home Secretary, Suella Brav ...

The electronic monitoring of foreign national offenders is riddled with flaws which can be traced back to Home Office underfunding and inefficiency, an independent report has found. The Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, David Neal, says the ...

In R (Abulbakr) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWHC 1183 (Admin), the High Court has ordered the Home Office to pay a detainee £17,500 for 40 days of unlawful detention caused by unreasonable delay in providing a release address. ...

In R (BVN) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWHC 1159 (Admin) the High Court has confirmed that the Secretary of State has no power to interfere with the conditions attached to a grant of High Court bail. It is an unusual issue and ...

A damning report on healthcare and safeguarding in detention has concluded that the existing protocols for vulnerable detainees are “totally and utterly flawed”.  The Medical Justice report Harmed not Heard focuses on the inadequacy of the Ru ...

From April 2022 the Home Office has moved to using telephone reporting as a mainstream reporting alternative. This follows on from changes implemented on an emergency basis during the pandemic lockdown and sustained lobbying by migrants rights groups. ...

Ali v The Home Office [2022] EWHC 866 (QB) is a successful appeal against the Central London County Court’s decision to dismiss the false imprisonment claim of a recognised Afghan refugee, detained for 98 days under the Detained Fast Track proc ...

Last August, the provisions in Schedule 10 of the Immigration Act 2016 providing for foreign national offenders liable to deportation to be subject to mandatory tagging as a condition of immigration bail were commenced. This provision was designed to ...

On 7 February 2022 the Home Office updated Detention Services Order 02/2019 on Care and management of Post Detention Age claims. This policy sets out the approach to age dispute cases in immigration detention and applies to Home Office staff and its c ...

The High Court has thrown out a challenge arguing that the free legal advice given to migrants in detention centres is rubbish. Mr Justice Calver held that statistical evidence that many legal aid firms provide a poor service was unreliable and that & ...

In Kaitey v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWCA Civ 1875 the Court of Appeal has upheld the High Court’s decision that the power to set immigration bail exists even when a person cannot be lawfully detained. As Alex commented at t ...

In R (Babbage) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWHC 2995 (Admin), the High Court found that a person with an extensive offending and adverse immigration history who posed high risks of re-offending and absconding was unlawfully det ...

On 21 October 2021 the Home Office published the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration’s (ICIBI) second annual inspection of the Adults at Risk policy, alongside its response. The report itself is an impressive piece of work and pro ...

The Supreme Court has this morning handed down judgment in R (Majera) (formerly SM Rwanda) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] UKSC 46. The appeal, as Lord Reed states in his opening sentence, raised a “question of constitutional ...

The Home Office has been found in breach of its legal duty to protect HIV patients in its custody after officials left a Congolese man without his daily medication for several days. In what Mr Justice Bourne described as an “unedifying” sp ...

An eight-month detention period for EU citizens is disproportionate, the Court of Justice of the European Union has decided. The case is C-718/19 Ordre des barreaux francophones and germanophone and Others. The case originated in the Belgian courts. L ...

From the outside looking in, initial immigration enforcement decisions like that in Glasgow last week to detain a person often seem opportunistic and random rather than strategic. The result is that the ‘wrong’ people end up being detained. We kno ...

To a person in detention, particularly in prison, every day of freedom lost matters and the Defendant needs to be able to justify it. In this case I think that principle became lost to sight. So says the High Court in the case of Louis v Home Office [ ...

The judgment of the Court of Appeal in MR (Pakistan) v Secretary of State for Justice & Others [2021] EWCA Civ 541 marks a major step forward in the battle over the use of immigration detention in prisons. The court has decided that the absence of ...

In R (Lawal) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (death in detention, SoS’s duties) [2021] UKUT 114 (IAC), the Upper Tribunal has decided that the Home Office’s policies on the death of immigration detainees are contrary to its proced ...

The Home Secretary has laid a new draft of the Adults at Risk statutory guidance before Parliament. The new version marks a significant change in how trafficking victims fit within the policy framework for detaining vulnerable people. At present, the ...

The High Court in SM v Lord Chancellor [2021] EWHC 418 (Admin) has held that free legal advice must be made available to immigration detainees held in prisons, bringing access to lawyers into line with the legal advice scheme operating in immigration ...

In an interim relief decision the High Court has ordered the release of an immigration detainee within 48 hours, indicating that judges will not allow the Home Office to use the pandemic as cover to justify long “grace period” delays in re ...

The High Court has upheld the continued detention of an Indian national in a Category B prison on the basis of a high risk of absconding and serious criminal convictions, despite detention already lasting well over a year. The case is Singh v Secretar ...