Legal News

A Jamaican man who was deported two years ago continued to fight the case through High Court and Court of Appeal claiming that he was detained illegally.
Judges have now ruled that part of the time he was locked up was technically unlawful because there was a failure to carry out monthly reviews of his custody despite the fact that it would not have changed his status to remain behind the bars
The 47-year-old had spent 20 years in Britain and served a seven-year jail term for plotting kidnap and blackmail before the Home Office managed to deport him, all the while running up huge taxpayer-funded legal bills for a string of court and tribunal hearings.
LE who came to UK as a visitor in 1989 married a British citizen but was allowed to stay on indefinitely, even after his marriage had broken down, the Court of Appeal heard.
In 1995 he was charged with having crack cocaine with intent to supply and obtaining a false passport by deception but was deemed mentally unfit to stand trial after being diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, and he spent two and a half years in a mental hospital
He was sent to prison for seven years when he was convicted of conspiracy to kidnap and blackmail in 2002. He made a claim for asylum during his stay in the prison.
LE was informed of the Home Office's intention to deport him as long ago as February 2006, but a series of court challenges followed and directions for his removal from the country twice had to be cancelled, once after an intervention by his local MP.
Further confusion followed after he lodged an application with the European Court of Human Rights without telling his solicitors and the Jamaican High Commission responded by refusing to endorse an emergency travel document.
Even after he was freed from detention on bail in July 2007, the legal process continued to grind onwards and LE was removed finally from UK only in December 2009.
Despite not even being in the country, LE carried on his fight against the Home Office, claiming he had been unlawfully detained between February 2006 and July 2007.
His legal team fought his case through the High Court and the Court of Appeal and won a ruling that, there was a failure to carry out monthly reviews of his custody, his detention was seven months in 2006.
However, awarding LE just £1 damages, Lord Justice Richards, sitting with Lords Justice Maurice Kay and Kitchin, said his initial detention was lawful but reviews would not have changed his situation.