Guardian News and Media/London
The Home Office has been ordered by the high court in London to pay compensation to four torture survivors who were unlawfully held in British immigration detention centres.
More than 100 other torture victims who have been wrongly detained are expected to make compensation claims following the test case ruling. A fifth case was settled at the doors of the court.
The amount of compensation is being negotiated.
Justice Burnett, who made the ruling, said he found it disturbing that the Home Office’s own rules, which require those who claim to have suffered torture to be medically examined and released from detention, had not been followed.
The case, brought by Medical Justice, a network of asylum detainees and doctors, and the Helen Bamber Foundation, followed the publication of a dossier of 50 cases of torture survivors who had been routinely detained in immigration detention centres.
Medical Justice says it has issued more than 100 “medico-legal” reports prepared by volunteer doctors for detained torture survivors each year who may now claim compensation.
The campaigners say rule 35 of the 2001 detention centre rules, which were designed to prevent torture victims being locked up, have been routinely flouted.
Rule 35 requires that those who have been tortured should be identified by medical staff, medically examined and a report sent to UK Border Agency officials who should decide whether to order their release.
The ruling also follows criticism from the UN high commissioner for refugees that inadequate screening processes meant rape victims and torture survivors who claimed asylum in Britain could find themselves being led off to a detention centre in handcuffs. The case has already led to a change in the Home Office guidance on the operation of rule 35.
A Home Office spokesperson said the findings of the complex judgment would be considered very carefully.
“Although we are disappointed with aspects of the ruling, we note that the high court has endorsed our wider policy regarding the detainment of former torture victims.”
She said that those who had survived torture were normally only considered suitable for detention in very exceptional circumstances “but there may be times when it is necessary to detain individuals before they are removed from the UK.”
Burnett said the Home Office had failed to apply its own rules, with independent reports of evidence of torture not being recognised or acted upon.
Jamie Beagent, of the law firm Leigh Day, who represented the torture victims, said that in each of the cases the Home Office had failed to follow its own rules.