Asylum seeker wins £100,000 after being ‘treated like a criminal’ by Home Office

An asylum seeker has been awarded £100,000 by the Home Office after claiming she was ‘treated like a criminal’ after overstaying in Britain.

Nadra Almas came to the UK from Pakistan on a student visa in 2004, and claimed she was unable to return home because her Christian faith would see her face ill-treatment and persecution.

In 2018 she was handcuffed and detained by Home Office officials who told her she would be deported, but she was released two weeks later.

The government then took almost three years to grant her refugee status, and forbid her from finding work or claiming benefits during that time.

During this period she had to rely on friends and family to get by, an experience that ‘undermined her self-esteem and caused her embarrassment’.

A court heard that Ms Almaras made six applications to stay in the UK between 2005 and 2014.

Her son, who was aged 26 at the time, was also granted refugee status in 2018 on the same grounds on which Ms Almas had applied.

Her treatment during this was a breach of her right to a family life under the Human Rights Act, a hudge ruled.

Recorder McNeill told the court: ‘She could not travel, she could not move freely, she could not develop her private and family life because her status was uncertain, and she could not work or claim public funds and had to rely on the little support from the asylum system.

‘She was wholly unable to work and her home life was affected by the anxiety she felt following her period of detention, feeling like a criminal and not a good person with her friends and family because she had been detained.’

The court also heard that during her two-week detention, Ms Almas was ‘handcuffed and detained, imprisoned in a room with two men she did not know and told she was going to be flown back to Pakistan’.

McNeill described her treatment during the detention as ‘outrageous’ and that officials showed ‘a reckless disregard for her rights’.

She added: ‘The rights at stake were the most basic rights of liberty of the individual. [Ms Almas] feared returning to Pakistan for reasons of her religion and personal safety, which she clearly expressed to [the Home office] on being detained, and was, indeed, in due course granted refugee status, thus vindicating the genuineness of her fears.’

Ms Almas was subsequently awarded compensation totalling £98,757.04 after the court ruled that her human rights were breached by her conditions.

The Government tried to appeal the decision, but this was later dismissed by Justice Ritchie who said that the ‘breaches were not trivial or minor’.

‘In my judgment, the Recorder’s rulings on unlawful detention due to breaches of policy were logical, supported by the evidence and her unchallenged findings of fact,’ Justice Ritchie said during his ruling. ‘These breaches were not trivial or minor.’

The damages awarded were appropriate, he added.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at [email protected].

For more stories like this, check our news page.