The High Court (Jefford J) has today handed down a judgment finding, amongst other things, that the safeguarding system contained in Rule 35 of the Detention Centre Rules 2001 was so ineffectively operated at Brook House Immigration Removal Centre that, at least as between July 2023 and March 2024, it breached the systems duty owed under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
This is a significant legal finding, reflecting long-standing and carefully analysed evidence of failures identified over many years including in the Brook House Inquiry but also more recently. As the Court found, the Secretary of State for the Home Department had not, properly or at all, addressed that evidence. The finding of breach necessarily followed. The system was ineffective.
The claim was brought by two men, AH and IS, both of whom were assessed as high risk of suicide and self-harm at the time of their detention, including at a level that required constant supervision, but who had still never received a Rule 35(2) report, which is concerned with those in detention who are only suspected of suicidal intentions. One of the men, IS, had previously been before the High Court in 2019, when he had been complaining about many of the same failures in connection with a previous period of detention. It was striking that he was now back again, after the Inquiry, having to make largely the same points.
Both men’s detention was also found to be unlawful on individual grounds.
AH & IS were represented by Nick Armstrong KC leading Toby Fisher for AH and Darryl Hutcheon for IS. They were instructed by Lewis Kett, Jamie Bell, Nicholas Hughes and Elleanor Wilkins of Duncan Lewis.
Click here to read the full judgment and here to read the Duncan Lewis press release.