Damages awarded for unlawful detention at Heathrow airport

A man who was detained at Heathrow for just over 17 hours has been awarded damages by the Court of Appeal. The case is R (Tazeem) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWCA Civ 347.

The appellant arrived at Heathrow on 9 September 2022 with a student visa granted for him to undertake a course at De Montfort University. To obtain his student visa, the appellant had provided evidence of his proficiency in English however when questioned by border officials they became concerned about his ability to speak English.

He was detained from 8.16pm on 9 September until 1:38pm on 10 September 2022. During this time, he was interviewed twice, then a decision was taken to cancel his leave to enter, then a third interview took place in which this was explained to him. He was told he would be returned to Pakistan on a flight leaving at 3:05pm that day.  

The appellant remained in detention until he instructed solicitors who submitted a judicial review on his behalf, following which he was released and his removal cancelled. There were four grounds. The first was that the Home Secretary had adopted an unfair procedure in failing to give the appellant notice of the allegation/concern about the authenticity of the documentation for his English qualifications.

The second ground was that the decision to cancel his leave to enter was irrational and/or procedurally unfair. The third ground was that the rejection of his administrative review was irrational and/or procedurally unfair, The final ground was that he had been detained unlawfully. The High Court allowed the judicial review on the first ground and dismissed the rest of the grounds.

The Court of Appeal considered an appeal in respect of the unlawful detention decision only, stating that this must be considered in the context of the High Court’s findings that the decision to cancel the appellant’s leave was unlawful.

The Court of Appeal concluded that the appellant’s detention was lawful up until the decision to cancel his leave to enter. The court said that before that decision, “he was detained in accordance with paragraph 16 of Schedule 2 pending a decision on whether to cancel his leave, and there were clearly grounds for concern about the appellant’s knowledge of English and the authenticity of his certificates.”

This meant that the appellant had been unlawfully detained for between 11 and 12 hours and the court awarded damages of £4,500.