UO v London Borough of Redbridge
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Lane |
| Judgment Date | 08 June 2023 |
| Neutral Citation | [2023] EWHC 1355 (Admin) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Docket Number | Case No: CO/153/2023 |
[2023] EWHC 1355 (Admin)
Mr Justice Lane
Case No: CO/153/2023
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
KING'S BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Mr J Jackson (instructed by Osborne Law Solicitors) for the Claimant
Mr O Abebrese (instructed by London Borough of Redbridge) for the Defendant
Hearing dates: 28 March 2023 and 26 April 2023
Approved Judgment
This judgment was handed down remotely at 10.30am on [date] by circulation to the parties or their representatives by e-mail and by release to the National Archives (see eg https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2022/1169.html).
A. INTRODUCTION
The claimant is a homeless single mother of three children: (i) LO, aged 11; (ii) JO, aged 5; and (iii) AO, aged 3. The claimant challenges decisions made by the defendant with regard to the housing of her and her family, which are asserted to be in breach of the defendant's statutory obligations as housing authority. In brief summary, the claimant and her family have been accommodated in a number of different hotels, without cooking or washing facilities, in several instances a significant distance from the school in Tottenham, which the children are attending. The defendant has offered the claimant self-contained accommodation in Peterborough, which the claimant contends is unsuitable.
B. PROCEDURAL HISTORY
Judicial review proceedings were issued on 14 January 2023. On 19 January 2023, Julian Knowles J made an order granting the claimant's applications for anonymity and expedition. The defendant was ordered to file its acknowledgement of service by no later than 26 January 2023.
The defendant failed to file its acknowledgement of service by the date specified in Julian Knowles J's order. In an order dated 6 February 2023, Dexter Dias KC, sitting as a judge of the High Court, granted an extension of time until 13 February 2023 for filing the acknowledgment of service. The defendant failed to comply with this order.
On 14 February 2023, Lang J granted permission on all grounds and ordered the claim to be heard on an expedited basis. She also granted the claimant permission to amend her statement of facts and grounds. The defendant was ordered to write to the Court to explain its non-compliance with Court orders, and to serve its detailed grounds of defence and written evidence by 1 March 2023. Once again, the Defendant failed to comply with this order. Instead, the defendant filed an acknowledgment of service and summary grounds of defence and applied for relief from sanctions.
By an order made on 9 March 2023, I permitted the defendant to file its acknowledgement of service and summary grounds out of time. I did not consider that the overriding objective would be served by preventing the defendant from attending the hearing and relying on its summary grounds. However, I concluded that the defendant should not be permitted to file any detailed grounds or evidence in this case. This was because (to quote the reasons for my order) “fairness demands that the defendant is held to what appears to be its position; namely, that it has said all it intends to say by way of written submissions and evidence.”
C. FACTUAL BACKGROUND
The following factual background is supplied by the claimant and, given the circumstances described above, I agree with her that she is entitled to ask the Court to regard what she says as uncontested.
The claimant came to the UK in 2015 on a visa to join her then partner. The relationship ended in 2016 and the claimant moved into a rented flat. Her visa expired in 2017, which meant she had to stop working and could no longer afford to pay rent. The family spent a period of time living with a friend of the claimant, before she made an application for asylum in 2019.
In July 2019, the claimant and her children were placed in accommodation by the National Asylum Support Service (NASS) in a hotel in Croydon. The claimant's daughter LO is said to have missed out on several months of education while the family was living in Croydon, as the claimant was unable to find a school in which to enrol LO. The family was moved to different NASS accommodation in East Ham in November 2019, and LO started attending school there from January 2020.
The claimant and her family were relocated to NASS accommodation in Tottenham in June 2021. In September 2021, the claimant enrolled LO and JO in a school in Tottenham, and AO in the nursery attached to the school. The children have remained there since that time, despite the family being moved again to NASS accommodation in Redbridge in January 2022. This was because the claimant did not want to cause further disruption to the children's education.
LO is now in Year 6, JO in Year 1, and AO in nursery. The claimant's case is that all three children have settled very well at the school in Tottenham and that it has provided a welcome pillar of stability in their lives.
LO is excelling academically and is due to sit her SATs in May 2023 before she progresses to secondary school. She was supported by her school in making an application for a scholarship to attend a fee-paying boarding school next year. She reached the final round in the application process but ultimately was not successful. LO has since secured her a place at a secondary school in Redbridge.
The claimant contends that she herself has established connections in and around the London Boroughs of Haringey, Redbridge, and Newham. She volunteers in East Ham and attends English and maths courses in Ilford.
Homelessness application
As a result of being granted refugee status on 12 July 2022, the claimant was no longer entitled to support under the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. Instead, she became entitled to assistance from the defendant under Part VII of the Housing Act 1996 (“the 1996 Act”). Another consequence was that she received a backdated payment of £8,673.85 in child benefit on 7 November 2022. About half of this was used by the claimant to pay debts accrued whilst seeking asylum. The claimant says her savings now stand at £750. The remaining reduction is said to be attributable to the costs the claimant has faced as a result of the type and locations of the accommodation provided by the defendant.
Faced with impending eviction from her NASS accommodation, the claimant made an application to the defendant for assistance on 22 August 2022 via an online request form. In her application, she stated that LO had already had to move schools several times and that it was “really important for child's well-being and development that she can stay at her current school.” She was told to follow up once she had received a notice of eviction.
On 7 October 2022, the claimant received a letter informing her that she would have to leave her NASS accommodation by 8 November 2022. She notified the defendant of this by email on 18 October 2022. The defendant sent her a link to complete a homelessness application and told her that her application had been allocated to Katherine Okosi.
The claimant submitted her homelessness application on 28 October 2022. An automated response instructed her to attend an interview on “the date and time agreed”. The claimant did not hear from Ms Okosi and received no information about a date and time for an interview. She wrote to the defendant to follow up but did not receive a response. Around a week before her eviction, she attended the defendant's offices in person to inform them that she still did not have an interview. She was told to go home and that her housing officer would contact her shortly.
On 7 November 2022 at 4.40pm, the claimant received a phone call from Marcia Madueira, the Defendant's Housing Solutions Team Leader. Ms Madueira spoke briefly with the claimant on the phone and informed her that the booking department would offer her accommodation the next day and that she needed to provide her eviction letter, an authorisation form and an income and expenditure form. No questions were asked regarding the claimant's housing needs or those of her children.
At 5:05pm, the claimant received an email from Ms Madueira with a letter attached. The letter acknowledged that the claimant was homeless and eligible for assistance, accepting the “Relief Duty” under section 189B(2) of the 1996 Act, and enclosing the Relief Assessment and Personalised Plan (“RAPP”). Under the title “Assessment”, the RAPP set out the following:
(i) the circumstances that caused the claimant to be homeless;
(ii) under “Housing Needs of the applicant”, it said: “Client has a 3 bedroom (sic) need”;
(iii) under “Housing Wishes of the applicant”, it said: “to be rehoused into alternative settled accommodation”;
(iv) under “Support needs of the applicant to acquire and maintain accommodation”, it said: “Client has savings to secure an AST but would benefit from assistance to find private sector accommodation”.
The “Personalised Plan” outlines steps that the claimant and the defendant are required to take. The boxes for the claimant and the defendant to signify agreement or lack of agreement with the Personalised Plan are unsigned.
Pursuant to the RAPP, the defendant has provided the claimant with accommodation in a series of hotels, and later made offers of self-contained accommodation in Peterborough. Accommodation was initially provided under section 188(1) of the 1996 Act, and latterly under section 193(2), once the defendant accepted its full accommodation duty towards the claimant on 8 February 2023.
The hotel accommodation
On 8 November 2022, the defendant provided the family with hotel accommodation. This accommodation was 1.5 hours away by public transport from the children's school, had no...
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