Thread by @SimonFRCox

In Sept 2020, Home Office Ministers started to evict 000s of former asylum-streets to destitution - on to streets or sofa-surf at the height of the pandemic.

For 7 months @gmlawcentre & @dpg_law fought back thru the courts blocking all evictions.

Today Home Office backed down.

https://twitter.com/dpg_law/status/1397203254031921157

In October 2020, working with @_A_S_A_P, @gmlawcentre persuaded the Principal Judge of the Asylum Support Tribunal these evictions threaten everyone’s public health - winning a “landmark” decision that all judges have followed since. +

When the Home Office refused to back down, @gmlawcentre brought a High Court judicial review of the evictions, asking the court to urgently block evictions of destitute people. +

On 2 November 2020, Mr Justice Fordham made an unprecedented order blocked all Home Office evictions of destitute former asylum-seekers, based on written arguments from the claimants, and directing an urgent hearing that week. +

Instead of defending their policy, the Home Office asked for the urgent hearing to be cancelled, then quietly dropped the eviction policy - but threatened to restart evictions within weeks.

This was December 2020 as the pandemic climbed to its New Year peak. +

In the face of the eviction threats, the claimants refused to withdraw their claims.

And a few weeks later, @dpg_law opened a new legal front - challenging immigration officials refusing to house destitute former asylum-seekers sleeping on the streets. +

While tribunal judges continued to order Home Office to house destitute individuals during the pandemic, the appeals moved too slow. So @dpg_law asked the High Court to intervene +

On 12 February the High Court refused to order the Home Office to accommodate all destitute former asylum-seekers, but instead created an unprecedented simplified procedure for individual orders for accommodation while the tribunal appeal was pending bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/… +

That Divisional Court judgment is at bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/…

Still, Home Office refused to accommodate destitute former asylum-seekers unless they pursued tribunal appeal - despite HO losing every single appeal. But when the High Court ordered an urgent judicial review of whether the Home Office had failed to consider public health .. . +

. . . on 1 April the Home Office produced their own public health assessment. Against advice from Public Health England, immigration officials decided that evicting up to 4,000 former asylum-seekers to destitution posed no real risk to public health. +

Quietly announcing evictions would begin at Step 2, the Home Office then moved quickly to ask the court to lift the injunction they’d chosen not to challenge in November. The former asylum-seekers responded by asking the court to hear the challenge to evictions in early May +

With the Home Office promising not to start evictions before the court hearing 10 days later, on 23 April Mr Justice Swift lifted the injunction barring evictions, and cancelled the February procedure for simplified injunctions. +

In the meantime, tribunal judges continued to allow every appeal, unanimously ruling that denials of accommodation to sofa surfing and rough sleeping destitute former asylum seekers during a deathly pandemic is a breach of human rights... +

…. in March, at Home Office request, the principal judge agreed to hold a ‘lead’ case on whether tribunal judges should be allowing appeals. On 25 April, she dismissed immigration’s case, ruling that - until Step 4 - it’s too dangerous for public health to deny accommodation +

On 6 May, Home Office asked the High Court to adjourn the challenge to their eviction policy so they could try and decide what powers they have been using since March 2020 (seriously!). The judge reluctantly agreed, but ordered them to suspend evictions until the case resumed. +

The case never resumed. Without disclosing what powers they think they’re using, the Home Office dropped their 1 April policy, agreeing not to make evictions before Step 4 and to pay the Claimants’ legal costs. The Claimants agreed to drop their challenge as moot. +

The challenges aren’t over. The Home Office has asked for permission to claim judicial review of the 25 April tribunal lead decision, and that case will be heard on 10-11 June (as a ‘rolled-up’ hearing meaning the whole case will be decided). That’s 10 days before Step 4… +

Speaking from the inside, it’s a wonderful privilege to work with two teams of such intelligent, committed and strategic solicitors @gmlawcentre & @dpg_law and likewise my fellow barristers Daniel Clarke @dongreene (+ @MirandaButler3 on the cases that ended in March) +

But …. this litigation should never have happened. Because the Home Office should never have put public health in danger by evictions, and shouldn’t have spent 6 months disregarding the unanimous view of the tribunal against denying accommodation. +

The evidence disclosed and read out in open court has attracted no real attention. Which is a pity. Because it shows how the Home Office sidelined expert public health advice in favour of an ‘assessment’ of risk to public health created by politicians and immigration officials.

The country and the rest of Government has been undergoing the greatest upheaval since WW2 to Stay Home - Protect the NHS - Save Lives.

But Immigration Ministers have been desperate to deny destitute people a bed, so they wouldn’t stay safe - endangering all of us. //

PS. This thread simplifies. A total of seven individuals, all anonymised brought 3 separate sets of legal proceedings. Over 7 months.