Brook House detainee awarded £200,000 in damages

Alex Goodman KC of Landmark Chambers represented the Claimant at the Brook House Inquiry (instructed by Duncan Lewis). After the Inquiry, the Claimant pursued a claim for damages and was awarded a total of over £200,000. He was represented at the hearing by Zainul Jafferji and Sheraaz Hingora.

One year after the Brook House Inquiry Report was published, judgment was handed down in the Claimant’s claim for damages. HHJ Roberts’ decision ([2024] EWHC 2365 (KB)) provides a helpful guide as to damages for false imprisonment in immigration detention, particularly as to violations of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), aggravated, and exemplary damages.

Background to the Claim

The Brook House Inquiry into the inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees uncovered by the BBC’s Panorama in 2017 held hearings from November 2021 until April 2022. Its report was published on 19 September 2023.

The Chair of the Brook House Inquiry was tasked with examining allegations of inhuman and degrading treatment within a snapshot period of five months in 2017. A number of individuals appeared before the Inquiry and gave evidence. One of these core participants - the claimant in this case- was detained in Brook House for three months, despite enjoying a legal right to be in the UK.

The Findings of the Brook House Inquiry

The Chair of the Brook House Inquiry, Kate Eves, made findings as to extensive violence, and inhuman and degrading treatment. She rejected the case as presented by the Home Office and G4S that such matters resulted from the actions of a small number of people as opposed to being symptomatic of systemic failure. The following are the key findings:

1. The Chair identified 19 incidents amounting to inhuman or degrading treatment. These incidents included considerable violence, humiliation and degradation of detainees. The true scale of likely abuse is only apparent when one considers that these findings were made as a result of examining as a sample the experience of 13 detainees. In the five-month period in question, around 3,000 people were detained at Brook House. Most of those detained were never reached by the Inquiry: they had been removed, returned to their home countries, or moved on.
2. The Chair found “the entire safeguarding system in a number of areas to be dysfunctional” (§ 40). The law and practice around removal from association was “routinely misunderstood, misinterpreted and misapplied by both G4S and the Home Office” (§ 38), and she found that “this confusion and potential misunderstanding persists under Serco” (Vol. II, § 36). Misuses of segregation were a matter of serious concern (§ 38). There were 241 cases of isolation (removal from association under rule 40) in the five-month period under examination (Vol. II, § 34). The Chair found that, in at least 237 of those cases, the use of isolation was not properly authorised.
3. There was a misuse of force against 11 of the 13 detainees whose cases were examined in detail, and pain was deliberately and unnecessarily inflicted on four of them during the inappropriate use of force (§ 15.2). Force was misused against naked people (§ 43): 3 of the 13 detainees were forcibly removed from their cells while naked or near naked (§ 15.2). Force was misused against mentally ill detainees (see Vol. II, p. 155). Monitoring and oversight were inadequate and led to dangerous situations (Vol. II, p. 158). Misuse of force included the choking incident on D1527 that was featured in Panorama. Shocking footage extending to 28 minutes was seen by the inquiry. The use of restraint techniques such as handcuffing behind the back, found in the Mubenga Inquest to be dangerous (2010), continue to be used.
4. The Chair found “serious failings in the application of rule 34 and 35” (§ 32) which amounted to a wholesale failure in processes designed to protect vulnerable detainees like suicidal people and torture victims from being detained, or from mistreatment while in detention, particularly in relation to suicidal people. She found healthcare professionals did not understand their obligations towards detained individuals and failed to appreciate their key safeguarding role (§ 50). The Inquiry did not receive “any evidence of fundamental changes since 2017” (Vol. II, § 33).
5. The Chair found “explicit racism” (Vol. II, § 41) and “found considerable evidence of racist beliefs and abuse by staff at Brook House” (Vol. II, § 89). She found that “Brook House appears to have been a breeding ground for racist views in the relevant period and was perceived as an acceptable environment in which to express them” (ibid). The Chair was “particularly concerned by the lack of reflection by some of those who remain working in Brook House, a number of whom are now in more senior roles. It inevitably casts doubt on how far the cultural changes described by Serco can be said to have been embedded. There is more to do” (Vol. I, § 55). The Chair found a culture of dehumanisation and of “us and them” (Vol. II, § 41).
6. There are relentless accounts of racist, homophobic and other degrading language (Vol. I, § 15.8). In many cases, such language was intensified during times when detainees were self-harming or attempting suicide.
7. Lengthy lock-ins detrimental to mental and physical well-being were driven by financial incentives connected to lower staffing levels (Vol. I, § 30).
8. Primary responsibility lay with the Home Office and its contractor G4S, yet there was alarming reliance on monitoring by volunteers at the Independent Monitoring Board. The Home Office accepted it did not sufficiently resource staff to monitor its contract (Vol. I, § 21). Her findings closely mirrored those of previous investigations: the problems have persisted for many years, and continue.

The decision of HHJ Roberts [2024] EWHC 2365 (KB)

At paragraph 108 of his judgment, HHJ Roberts provided some useful guidance on the admissibility of findings, as opposed to underlying evidence, from the Brook House Inquiry. In civil proceedings. In its official response to the Brook House Inquiry, the Home Office had largely accepted the findings and itself described what had been found as “shocking and unacceptable”. The Defendant had argued that the damages claim should await the findings of the Brook House Inquiry. However, at trial, the Defendant sought to resile from these positions and argue that the Inquiry’s findings were inadmissible. The judge held:

“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.”

Quantum of Damage

The following table takes the judge’s own summary (at paragraph 300) and adds some annotation by way of explanation of the sums of damages awarded.

Conclusion

The case will provide some helpful guidance to those pursuing damages in the wake of the Brook House Inquiry. The court found that the Claimant suffered inhuman or degrading treatment predominantly as a result of factors arising from simply being detained in Brook House. Other cases examined by the Inquiry identified mistreatment of a far more extreme kind, involving serious abuse and violence towards detainees. The award of £26,000 for such violations of Article 3 is significant and should set a benchmark in those cases. It may also give the government some pause for thought as the Home Office proposes to once again expand the use of immigration detention without implementing most of the recommendations or safeguards proposed at the Inquiry.

Press coverage can be found on BBC News.

This blog was written by Alex Goodman KC.