Appeal court gives 11th-hour reprieve to detainees due to be sent to Jamaica (Multiple Sources) (14 February 2020)

Lawyers from the Duncan Lewis public law department have been extensively featured in the media concerning the charter flight deporting over fifty people to Jamaica. Public law director Toufique Hossain is quoted in The Guardian concerning our representation of Detention Action who brought the legal challenge against the deportation owing to the lack of O2 phone network at Heathrow detention centres which left detainees unable to exercise their legal right to contact their lawyers. Toufique comments; “For weeks now detainees’ complaints have fallen on deaf ears. Their removal looms large, hours away and yet again it takes judicial intervention to make the Home Office take basic, humane and fair steps to allow people to enjoy their constitutional right to access justice.” Caseworker Dunya Kamal is also quoted in The Independent, commenting; “This is yet another example of the callous and cruel way in which they have approached this charter flight.” During a radio interview on BBC Radio 5 Live’s The Emma Barnett Show, solicitor Maria Thomas highlighted the fact that a number of the detainees committed their crimes “…in the context of being victims of trafficking, specifically county lines trafficking.” This, she explains, shows that; “…there are real questions to be answered before proceeding with this type of forcibly removing a number of people and this mass expulsion.”