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The Administrative Court this week granted permission and interim relief in a series of linked challenges to the Home Office’s asylum accommodation site at a disused Ministry of Defence barracks in Wethersfield, Essex.
The claimants in these challenges argue that the Home Office has acted unlawfully in accommodating asylum seekers at the site, including on grounds that it is harmful to health, involves widespread detention and racial segregation, and that the Home Office lacks adequate mechanisms to identify vulnerable asylum seekers who are harmed by being placed at the camp.
The court heard evidence that large numbers of individuals who are unsuitable to be placed at Wethersfield are routinely placed there, including victims of torture and slavery, and many have experienced catastrophic declines in their mental health as a result, with several claimants having attempted suicide since being placed at the camp. Many asylum seekers describe the camp as being “like a prison” and have articulated feelings of isolation (the camp is in a very remote location, with most entry and exit only possible by bus), despair, and exclusion from the community.
The criticisms of the site have recently been covered by The Guardian. This article quotes asylum seekers expressing fear that they will die at Wethersfield and NGOs describing this type of accommodation as “a dangerous, untested political and social experiment”.
Alex Goodman KC and Miranda Butler act for MJ, an asylum seeker whom the Home Office insisted on leaving at the camp even after extensive medical evidence was adduced regarding the harm this accommodation was doing to him. Even after MJ attempted suicide the Home Office did not agree to relocate him. However, the Administrative Court granted him interim relief, ordering the Home Office to relocate him to more suitable accommodation within two days.
The substantive hearing of these claims will take place on 23-26 July. Alex Goodman KC and Miranda Butler are instructed to act for one of the claimants by a team at Duncan Lewis including Toufique Hossain, Shalini Patel, Thomas Munns and Rhiannon Croker.
