Napier Barracks: Asylum seekers win legal challenge over ‘squalid’ accommodation
Six asylum seekers who brought a legal case against the Home Office for “unsafe” and “squalid” conditions at a former army barracks in Kent have won their High Court case.
The group of men, all said to be “survivors of torture and/or human trafficking”, were formerly housed at Napier Barracks, and argued that conditions at the camp posed “real and immediate risks to life and of ill-treatment”.
On Thursday Mr Justice Linden ruled in the men’s favour and found that the accommodation failed to meet a “minimum standard” and that the Home Office acted unlawfully when deciding the former military camp was appropriate.
He said: “Whether on the basis of the issues of Covid or fire safety taken in isolation, or looking at the cumulative effect of the decision making about, and the conditions in, the barracks, I do not accept that the accommodation there ensured a standard of living which was adequate for the health of the claimants.
“Insofar as the defendant considered that the accommodation was adequate for their needs, that view was irrational.”
During a two-day hearing in April, the men’s lawyers said that accommodating asylum seekers at the “squalid” barracks was a breach of their human rights and could amount to false imprisonment.
Mr Justice Linden added that while “adequacy” was a low standard, Napier Barracks had failed during the time the six asylum seekers were housed there.
The judge referenced Covid-19 spread and overcrowding, a lack of ventilation, as well as the “detention-like” setting for the men, who were not meant to be detained.
He said: “What is at issue here is accommodation in which they were supposed to live voluntarily pending a determination of their applications for asylum.
“When this is considered, a decision that accommodation in a detention-like setting - a site enclosed by a perimeter fence topped with barbed wire, access to which is through padlocked gates guarded by uniformed security personnel - will be adequate for their needs, begins to look questionable.”
More to follow...