Radha Naran Patel v Secretary of State for the Home Department
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | HH Judge Anthony Thornton QC,HH Judge Anthony Thornton |
| Judgment Date | 30 July 2014 |
| Neutral Citation | [2014] EWHC 501 (Admin) |
| Docket Number | Case No: CO/4875/2011 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Date | 30 July 2014 |
[2014] EWHC 501 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Judge Anthony Thornton QC
Sitting as a deputy judge of the High Court
Case No: CO/4875/2011
Ms Shivani Jegarajah and Ms Amanda Walker (instructed by Urvi Shah, Solicitor) appeared on behalf of the Claimant
Ms Jacqueline Lean (instructed by The Treasury Solicitor) appeared on behalf of the Defendant
Hearing date: 18 October 2013 and post-hearing submissions
Summary
This summary forms no part of the judgment.
The judgment concerns the claimant's claim for substantial general, aggravated and exemplary damages for false imprisonment and damages under articles 5, 8 and 14 of the Human Rights Act.
These damages were claimed for her unlawful detention, for the malicious and deliberate bullying and ill-treatment that she suffered when she was interrogated in detention, for the concoction and fabrication of admissions that she was alleged to have made in interviews which were known by the interviewing IO to be false and the opposite of what she was answering and for her unlawful detention that was ultra vires, imposed for an ulterior purpose, whose imposition was an abuse of power and the decision for which was unreasonable, irrational and taken without considering what should have been considered and having considered what should not have been considered.
These damages were also claimed for her treatment following her detention. She was unlawfully released from detention on temporary admission which she should have been released with 6 months leave to enter. She was then subjected to a series of unlawful actions and decisions whose ulterior and unlawful purpose was to mislead the FtT and the Administrative Court, to cover up the unlawful her which would retrospectively but unlawfully have validated those detention decisions.
As a result of all of these unlawful actions, omissions and decisions, the claimant's claim succeeds and she is awarded a total of £110,000 in general and aggravated damages and as damages under the HRA and a further £15,000 in exemplary damages.
Index
| Section | Contents | Paragraphs |
| 1 | Introduction | 1 – 7 |
| 2 | Entry Clearance and Leave to Enter | 8 — 18 |
| 3 | The Evidence | 19 – 230 |
| (1) | Introduction | 19 |
| (2) | Entry clearance | 20 – 26 |
| (3) | Preliminary check point interview | 27 – 64 |
| (4) | Decisions to suspend and temporarily detain | 65 – 69 |
| (5) | Temporary detention inquiries | 70 – 72 |
| (6) | Unofficial bullying interviews | 73 – 86 |
| (7) | Further interview | 87 – 111 |
| (8) | Refusal and immigration detention decision | 112 – 126 |
| (9) | 24-hour detention decision | 127 – 129 |
| (10) | CIO Davies's explanation for refusal and detention decisions | 130 – 138 |
| (11) | PAP letter | 139 – 140 |
| (12) | Refusal to withdraw decision | 141 |
| (13) | Radha's JR claims | 142 – 145 |
| (14) | Radha's time in immigration detention | 146 – 147 |
| (15) | CIO Khan's withdrawal and temporary admission decision of 28 May 211 | 148 – 160 |
| (16) | FtT second appeal and explanatory statement | 161 – 177 |
| (17) | JR proceedings | 178 – 180 |
| (18) | Fresh decision issued by CIO Khan dated 8 August 2011 | 181 – 192 |
| (19) | SSHD's acknowledgement of service | 193 – 198 |
| (20) | Third FtT appeal | 199 – 215 |
| (21) | The renewed application for permission | 216 |
| (22) | Radha's grant of leave to enter and the return of her passport | 217 — 220 |
| (23) | Substantive JR hearing | 221 — 230 |
| 4 | Summary of the Relevant Legal Principles | 231 – 275 |
| (1) | Basis of claim | 231 – 238 |
| (2) | Relevant decisions | 239 |
| (3) | False imprisonment, wrongful detention and protected rights under Articles 5, 8 and 14 of the ECHR | 240 – 248 |
| (4) | Employment, work and assistance | 249 – 251 |
| (5) | Different purpose and change of circumstances | 252 – 254 |
| (6) | Scope of the claim | 255 – 256 |
| (7) | Burden and onus of proof | 257 – 259 |
| (8) | Issue estoppel and abuse of process | 260 – 262 |
| (9) | Temporary admission | 263 |
| (10) | Explanatory statement | 264 – 265 |
| (11) | Disclosure | 266 – 268 |
| (12) | Lawfulness of CIO Khan's decision and actions on 28 May 2011 | 269 – 271 |
| (13) | Effect of the second FtT appeal decision dated 5 July 2011 | 272 |
| (14) | Lawfulness of decision dated 8 August 2011 | 273 – 275 |
| 5 | Findings of Fact | 276 — 315 |
| (1) | Introduction | 276 |
| (2) | Radha's grant of entry clearance | 277 – 278 |
| (3) | Preliminary check point interview | 279 – 285 |
| (4) | Interviews and investigations between 19.45 and 22.30 | 286 – 291 |
| (5) | The further interview | 292 – 295 |
| (6) | SSHD's subsequent decisions and actions | 296 |
| (7) | The 24-hour review | 297 |
| (8) | The refusal decision of 25 May 2011 | 298 |
| (9) | CIO Khan's withdrawal decision dated 28 May 2011 | 299 – 306 |
| (10) | The explanatory statement | 307 |
| (11) | The second FtT appeal | 308 – 309 |
| (12) | Acknowledgement of service | 310 – 311 |
| (13) | Fresh decision | 312 |
| (14) | Third FtT appeal | 313 |
| (15) | Further steps in the judicial review and the return of Radha's passport | 314 – 315 |
| 6 | Core findings | 316 – 319 |
| (1) | Core findings of fact | 316 |
| (2) | SSHD decisions | 317 |
| (3) | Unlawful detention | 318 |
| (4) | ECHR breaches | 319 |
| 7 | Damages and Declarations | 320 – 346 |
| (1) | Introduction | 320 – 325 |
| (2) | The SSHD's response | 326 |
| (3) | Radha's entitlement to claim for the post-detention unlawful conduct | 327 – 329 |
| (4) | The heads of damage | 330 |
| (5) | The inter-relationship between damages for unlawful detention and for breach of section 6 of the HRA | 331 |
| (6) | General and aggravated damages for false imprisonment | 332 – 333 |
| (7) | Special damages for false imprisonment | 334 — 335 |
| (8) | Damages under section 6 of the HRA | 336 – 342 |
| (9) | Exemplary damages | 343 |
| (10) | Conclusion – recoverable damages | 344 |
| (11) | Declaration | 345 |
| (12) | Costs of judicial review | 346 |
| 8 | Overall conclusion | 347 — 348 |
Introduction
This judicial review claim is brought by Mrs Radha Naran Patel ("Radha") against the Secretary of State for Home Affairs ("SSHD") with the permission of Mr Clive Lewis QC granted at a hearing on 16 March 2012. Because Radha's younger sister Miss Hansha Patel ("Hansha") and her younger brother Mr Laxman Patel ("Laxman") are involved in the factual background to this claim, I will refer to them throughout as, respectively, Radha, Hansha and Laxman.
Radha claims declarations that she was falsely imprisoned and unlawfully detained by the SSHD between 23 and 28 May 2011 and was the victim of malicious and deliberate unlawful conduct by at least one immigration officer ("IO") and one chief immigration officer ("CIO") which caused or was directly related to that detention and which amounted to an infringement of her rights under articles 5, 8 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights ("ECHR"). She also claims general, aggravated and exemplary damages for false imprisonment and unlawful detention, damages under section 6 of the Human Rights Act (" HRA") for breaches of her ECHR rights and declarations connected with these claims.
Radha's principle allegations are in summary that her leave to enter the UK was unlawfully suspended and then unlawfully cancelled, she was unlawfully refused entry to the UK, was unlawfully temporarily detained pending further investigations and a further interview and then unlawfully detained pending her removal. She was also the subject of subsequent unlawful decisions taken by Border Force and the United Kingdom Border Agency ("UKBA") with the authority of the SSHD on 24 May 2011 (the 24-hour review), 25 May 2011 (the refusal to withdraw the cancellation and refusal decisions) and 28 May 2011 (the withdrawal of the cancellation and refusal decisions), 25 June 2011 (the issue of the explanatory statement), 8 August 2011 (the change of circumstances decision) and 1 October 2011 (the reissue of the explanatory statement). These decisions were all taken unlawfully, maliciously and knowingly without cause on the basis of concocted evidence and without justification.
As a result of this series of unlawful acts and omissions, Radha was unlawfully detained between 23 and 28 May 2011, was subjected to bullying and harassing conduct whilst in detention, had her passport unlawfully impounded from 23 May 2011 until 16 March 2012 and was unlawfully released on temporary admission between 29 May 2011 until 16 March 2012 despite having an entitlement to the grant of leave to enter. She was then harassed by a series of unlawful acts and omissions whilst conducting two successive First-tier Tribunal ("FtT") appeals and this judicial review. These three pieces of litigation were directly concerned with her unlawful detention and the other related unlawful decisions. She was unable to leave the United Kingdom ("UK") for 5 months after the termination of her original leave to enter had expired due to that harassing conduct, to the need to remain in the UK whilst her FtT appeals and her application for permission to apply for judicial review were pending and to the impounding of her passport.
For this series of unlawful acts and omissions, Radha claims general, aggravated and exemplary damages for her unlawful detention, for the direct...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
The Queen (on the application of Radha Naran Patel) v Secretary of State for the Home Department
...IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION) ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT His Honour Judge Thornton Q.C. [2014] EWHC 501 (Admin) Royal Courts of Justice Strand, London, WC2A 2LL Lord Justice Moore-Bick (Vice-President of the Court of Appeal, Civil Division) Lord ......