A young British citizen has secured substantial damages and legal costs after the Home Office treated him as a foreign national offender.
UF was born in the UK in 2002 to European parents who had arrived in the early 1990s. He has lived in the UK all his life. In 2020, aged 17, UF received a criminal conviction, for which he later received a 42-month sentence after he turned 18.
Shortly after his sentencing, UF was told by Home Office officials that he was liable to deportation as a foreign national, believing that he was not British and only held his parents' citizenship. A Home Office official recorded in internal notes that they had "no doubt" the Home Office would need to concede that UF's deportation was not lawfully possible and that this ought to be conceded before UF became eligible for early release from prison on Home Detention Curfew in around a year and half’s time.
UF promptly provided further evidence of his birth and residence in the UK for his whole life shortly after being notified of possible deportation. However, the Home Office misplaced this material and wrongly assumed for several months that UF had not responded to his deportation notification, that he was implicitly consenting to his deportation, and that his case therefore represented (in the words of a Home Office official in further internal notes) a "quick win" which could be handled by the Expedited Removals Unit.
Even after UF’s further evidence was located by the Home Office, eight months after it was received, and it was realised UF was not consenting to being deported the Home Office continued to fail to properly consider his case, informing the prison where UF was held that he could not be released on HDC as there was still a possibility he may be deported. This meant that UF spent an extra 6 months in prison in lockdown conditions imposed due to Covid 19.
The Home Office failures continued up to the midpoint of UF's sentence (his Conditional Release Date) when he was entitled to be released from custody but was again not released because of a Home Office decision to detain him under immigration powers.
UF was released after a month and a half, following his obtaining legal assistance from Turpin Miller who threatened the Home Office with judicial review on his behalf. However, UF was only released on condition that he comply with immigration bail conditions including weekly reporting and 24-hour electronic monitoring.
Turpin Miller submitted to the Home Office's deportation section, the Foreign National Offender Returns Command, that UF had been born a British citizen and was not liable to deportation. FNORC refused to consider this submission and insisted that UF had to apply for a British passport to HM Passport Office and pay the associated fee.
With assistance from Turpin Miller and a charity supporting migrants and asylum seekers that paid the passport application fee, UF obtained a British passport, having demonstrated to HMPO that he had been born a British citizen. This in turn established that he should never have been targeted for deportation, denied release on HDC, detained under immigration powers, or subjected to immigration bail.
UF subsequently pursued a claim for damages for false imprisonment and negligence against the Home Office. The Home Office denied liability in correspondence and in pleadings filed with the Court but nevertheless agreed to settle UF's claim by paying substantial damages and his legal costs.
UF was represented by Mike Poulter of Turpin Miller and Greg Ó Ceallaigh KC of Garden Court Chambers.