In a settlement approved by the High Court on 9 February 2009 the Home Office accepted that a family from the Republic of Congo were unlawfully arrested and unlawfully detained at Yarl’s Wood Detention Centre

The family - who included a one year old baby and a child of eight - were asylum seekers at the time and they have now been given leave to stay in the country. Their claim related to their arrest and detention between the 6 June 2006 and 3 August 2006 (57 days) and 29 September 2006 and 2 October 2006 (3 days). On both occasions they were detained at Yarl’s Wood Detention Centre.

In the face of court proceedings brought by the family, the Home Office has accepted that their arrests and subsequent detentions was unlawful as they could not have been lawfully removed from the country.

Both detentions followed much criticised “dawn raids” with large numbers of uniformed officers arriving to arrest the family at their then homes in the West Midlands, as well as the controversial practice of detaining children under the Immigration Act.
These events caused both children to suffer psychiatric damage, the younger child suffering from an adjustment disorder and the older child also suffering post traumatic stress disorder. The children remained in detention despite the fact that Bedfordshire Social Services and a psychologist raised with the Home Office their concerns about the impact of the detention on them.

Mark Scott, of Bhatt Murphy solicitors who acted for the family commented that;

“this case demonstrates not only the very damaging impact that detention has on children but the wholesale failure of the Home Office to comply with their own policy and the commitments given to Parliament that detention of children is only used as a measure of last resort and even then for the shortest possible time.”