Fouad Idira v Secretary of State for the Home Department
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Holman |
| Judgment Date | 13 May 2014 |
| Neutral Citation | [2014] EWHC 1724 (Admin) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Date | 13 May 2014 |
| Docket Number | CO/129/2014 |
[2014] EWHC 1724 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London WC2A 2LL
Mr Justice Holman
CO/129/2014
Mr G Denholm (instructed by Bhatt Murphy Solicitors) appeared on behalf of the Claimant
Mr M Gullick (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared on behalf of the Respondent
(As approved by the judge)
This is a claim by Fouad Idira challenging aspects of the lawfulness of his immigration detention. When the claim was first issued in January 2014 he was being detained in immigration detention in Wormwood Scrubs Prison. At that stage, therefore, there were two urgent limbs to his claim. First, he had, as he still has, a claim that it is not justifiable to detain him in immigration detention at all. Secondly, he had a claim that it was unlawful for him to be being detained in a prison rather than in an immigration removal centre (IRC,) even if his detention as such was justifiable and not unlawful.
As a result, directions were given for a relatively accelerated hearing of this claim; and today, Tuesday, 13 May 2014, was fixed as the hearing date. Only one day was estimated and allowed for this hearing. It is to my mind essential that estimates include sufficient time for preparation and delivery of judgment as well as oral argument. As it happens, the claimant was removed from Wormwood Scrubs Prison to Harmondsworth IRC on 21 March 2014. The result, of course, is that there is now no urgency about his challenge to having been detained in prison. He still wishes to establish, if he can, that immigration detention in prison (at any rate in his circumstances) is, and was, unlawful, and seeks the remedy damages. But there is clearly no urgency about that.
It seemed to me very obvious from even a cursory glance at these papers yesterday that the issues that the parties wished to raise and develop around immigration detention in prison are quite profound and wide ranging. A considerable body of material has been assembled in relation to that topic and issue in this case, and a considerable body of authorities. It was, frankly, obvious to me that there was nowhere near enough time in the one day estimate for us to grapple today with both limbs of this application.
Accordingly, I sent an email to both counsel towards the end of yesterday afternoon in which I made plain that I intended to limit the scope of the hearing today to considering whether or not the claimant's continued detention in an IRC is justifiable and lawful, and that the now historic issue of whether or not it was lawful to detain him in a prison prior to March 2014 will have to be adjourned to another hearing with more time set aside.
Further, I have been told today by Mr Mathew Gullick, who appears on behalf of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, that there is another case in which he himself is engaged, called Lentelsi, which raises the same or very similar issues with regard to immigration detention in a prison. Lentelsi has currently been fixed for hearing on 15 July 2014. It may therefore be that the decision and outcome of Lentelsi will considerably illuminate the decision in the present case with regard to the lawfulness of immigration detention in prison, and may even, indeed, resolve, one way or another, that limb of the claimant's claim. So for those reasons I intend to adjourn off altogether, not part-heard, all issues of law and fact in relation to detention in prison, to be refixed on the first open date with sufficient time allowed and, in any event, after the hearing in Lentelsi in mid July.
Counsel raised with me the question of whether I should in some way list the present case for hearing concurrently with the hearing in Lentelsi, but I am not inclined to do that. Only a short amount of time has currently been allowed for the Lentelsi hearing, and the effect of listing both cases concurrently may be unfairly to lead to an adjournment in Lentelsi.
So the question which I now address by this judgment is whether or not the current and future detention of the claimant in an IRC is justifiable.
The essential factual background is as follows. The claimant says that he was born in January 1983, so he is now aged 31. He entered the United Kingdom in February 1998, when he was aged just 15. He fairly rapidly made a claim for asylum, saying that he originates from, and had travelled from, Algeria. It is sufficient to say that in due course the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal dismissed that asylum claim in August 2007. The claimant did not seek further to appeal, and so in relation to any asylum claim he became appeal rights exhausted in September 2007.
Very regrettably, in the period after he first claimed asylum in 1998, right through to his last period of freedom in 2012, the claimant has, on a significant number of occasions, committed criminal offences of which he was then convicted.
His record includes the following: a caution for theft in 1998; a conviction of theft for which he was given a conditional discharge in March 1999; a caution for causing criminal damage in 1999; a conviction of handling stolen goods for which he was sentenced to 40 hours' community service in November 2000; a conviction of theft for which he was sentenced to 2 months' youth detention in June 001; a further conviction of theft for which he was sentenced to a 12 months' community rehabilitation order in June 2001; a conviction of failing to surrender to custody for which he was find £75 with one day's imprisonment in default of payment in October 2001; a conviction on four counts of theft for which he was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment and recommended for deportation in January 2002. At that time, the then Secretary of State for the Home Department notified the claimant that he was taking no further action to deport the claimant. A conviction of being drunk and disorderly, for which he was fined £50 in February 2003; a caution for being drunk and disorderly in 2003; a caution for possession of cannabis in 2003; a conviction of receiving stolen goods for which he was sentenced to a 12 months' community rehabilitation order in January 2004; a conviction of theft for which he was sentenced to 15 months' imprisonment in January 2006. Following that conviction, the Secretary of State for the Home Department gave him notice of a decision to make a deportation order.
The claimant was first detained under immigration powers in August 2006, whilst the Secretary of State began the process of seeking to deport him back to Algeria. It can therefore be said that, with more or less degrees of urgency and application, the Secretary of State has now been seeking to deport this claimant for the better part of eight years.
The claimant was released from that first period of immigration detention in November 2007. Regrettably, within a short space of time he began offending again, for he was convicted of handling stolen goods and sentenced to 1 month and 25 days' imprisonment in January 2008. Not surprisingly, in view of that almost immediate resumption of offending, he was detained again in immigration detention at the conclusion of that sentence, in February 2008.
The claimant was released on bail from that second period of immigration detention in May 2009. By August 2009, he had again resumed offending, for he was convicted of theft and sentenced to 4 months' imprisonment in mid August 2009. Again, unsurprisingly, at the conclusion of that sentence of imprisonment, he was again detained in immigration detention for the third time, in October 2009. He was released on bail in January 2011. There was clearly some reporting requirement, for it appears that there were a number of failures to report during January through to July 2011. In that period, according to the chronology, he allegedly failed to report on at least 11 occasions. Deeply regrettably, he again offended, for he was convicted of theft and sentenced to 10 weeks' imprisonment in August 2011.
Again, unsurprisingly, at the conclusion of that sentence the claimant was detained again for the fourth time, in immigration detention. He was released from that detention in March 2012. There were again further alleged failures to report, according to the chronology, on six occasions between then and November 2012. In November 2012, he was yet again convicted of theft and sentenced to 3 months and 20 days of imprisonment.
Again, unsurprisingly, upon his released from that sentence of imprisonment, the claimant was redetained, now for the fifth time, in immigration detention. That period of detention began on 14 January 2013 and he has been in continuous detention ever since then. So, as today is 13 May 2014, he has been in continuous immigration detention now for 16 months.
The claimant was initially detained in Wandsworth Prison and later transferred to Wormwood Scrubs. As I have said, the present proceedings challenging the fact of his detention and, separately, the fact of his detention in prison, were commenced in January 2014, and on 21 March 2014 he was transferred to Harmondsworth IRC.
It is necessary now briefly to set the legal framework for deciding whether or not his current and continuing detention is justifiable and therefore lawful. The role of the court in this context has been described by Toulson LJ in A v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2007] EWCA Civ 804 at paragraph 62. He said:
"Where the court is...
To continue reading
Request your trial