The inquiry into the mistreatment and abuse of detained people at Brook House Immigration Removal Centre in 2017 will start public hearings on Tuesday 23 November 2021. The hearings will run until 10 December. There will be a second phase of hearings in February and March 2022.
The inquiry came about as a result of an undercover BBC Panorama investigation which broadcast on 4 September 2017. Two victims of alleged mistreatment, MA and BB, brought a judicial review seeking an inquiry which would comply with Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. That judicial review succeeded and the Brook House Inquiry was established in November 2019.
Nick Armstrong represents three of the core participants in the inquiry: two formerly detained people BB (he also represented BB in the judicial review, acting with Jesse Nicholls) and VE, together with Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group, a charity which operates in Brook House and which has provided evidence about safeguards and institutional culture.
Nick is instructed by Deighton Pierce Glynn solicitors, leading Jesse Nicholls and Una Morris of Garden Court Chambers.