Lewis Roach-Kett

Immigration

• Acting as the Lead Solicitor for the Duncan Lewis cohort of clients for the Brook House Public Inquiry. The Public Inquiry investigated mistreatment and abuse of detained persons at Brook House in 2017, following undercover reporting by BBC Panorama.
• The lead challenge to the Home Office’s policy of removing asylum seekers to Rwanda.

• The Manston Inquiry - Acting as the Lead Solicitor for the Duncan Lewis cohort of clients for the Manston Public Inquiry. This ongoing Inquiry is investigating the decisions, actions and circumstances which led to the conditions encountered by those detained at the Manston Short-Term Holding Facility between 1 June 2022 and 22 November 2022.
• AH and IS v SSHD [2025] EWHC 3269 – Represented AH in this challenge in which the High Court found that between July 2023 and March 2024 the Home Office failed, in breach of Article 3 ECHR, to implement a system at Brook House IRC to ensure that immigration detainees who fell within the scope of rule 35 of the Detention Centre Rules 2001 were protected from violations of their rights under Article 3 ECHR. AH was also found to be subjected to unlawful detention for his entire period of detention and unlawful uses of force, segregation and a strip search.
• D1914 + Ors v SSHD [2025] EWHC 1853 – an unsuccessful challenge to the Home Secretary’s response to the Brook House Public Inquiry and failure to rectify dangerous practices identified by the Inquiry in line with Article 3 ECHR.
• AK v SSHD [2025] EWHC 1651 – the High Court found that the Home Office’s complaints process for investigating serious mistreatment in immigration detention was procedurally unfair.
• HT + Ors v SSHD (AC-2023-LON-001649) and AA + Ors v SSHD (AC-2023-LON-001561) – Represented the Duncan Lewis Claimants in a judicial review claim to the Home Secretary’s failure to implement an Article 3 ECHR-compliant investigation into events in 2022 at Manston Short-Term Holding Facility, in which immigration detainees were held beyond statutory time limits in inhumane and degrading conditions. The claim settled in January 2025 after the Home Secretary agreed to establish the Manston Inquiry.
• MT v SSHD (AC-2023-LON-001114) – Judicial review claim allowed by consent. The SSHD accepted they had unlawfully detained an immigration detainee with paranoid schizophrenia for his entire period of detention between 20 August 2022 and 27 April 2023. The Home Office also accepted that the Claimant was subjected to degrading treatment contrary to Article 3 ECHR because of the SSHD’s failure to ensure consistent access to anti-psychotic medication as a result of the evacuation of Harmondsworth IRC in November 2022. The Claimant was awarded £105,000 in damages.
• Barizi v SSHD [2023] EWHC 3491 – an interim relief judgment granting the release of an immigration detainee, providing guidance on the provision of accommodation under Schedule 10 to the Immigration Act 2016.
• AAA + Ors v SSHD [2023] UKSC 42 – the UK Supreme Court found that the Government’s policy of removing asylum seekers to Rwanda was unlawful in breach of Article 3 ECHR, upholding the decision of the Court of Appeal in AAA + Ors v SSHD [2023] EWCA Civ 266.
• AAA + Ors v SSHD [2023] EWCA Civ 266 – the Court of Appeal on appeal overturned the decision of the Divisional Court below, determining that the Government’s policy of removing asylum seekers to Rwanda was unlawful in breach of Article 3 ECHR.
• AAA + Ors v SSHD [2022] EWHC 3230 – The Divisional Court determined that the Home Office’s policy of removing asylum seekers to Rwanda was lawful and compliant with Article 3 ECHR, but that the individual related decisions for all of Duncan Lewis’ clients were unlawful. The Article 3 ECHR finding was later overturned on appeal by the Court of Appeal (as upheld by the Supreme Court).
• NSK v the United Kingdom (28774/22) – Assisted in drafting the Rule 39 application that resulted in the first urgent interim measure preventing an asylum seeker’s removal to Rwanda under the Home Office’s Rwanda policy on 14 June 2022.
• AK and AJ v SSHD (AC-2022-LON-003575 and 003580). Judicial review allowed by consent, in which the SSHD agreed that at the time of the evacuation of Harmondsworth IRC in November 2022, they were in breach of Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 by failing to have due regard to the need for an evacuation plan adjusted for disabled detainees. A declaration was also made that the rights of AJ, an immigration detainee with HIV, under Article 3 ECHR were breached by the SSHD by failing to ensure consistent access to anti-retroviral medication.
• Brook House Public Inquiry - Acting as the Lead Solicitor for the Duncan Lewis cohort of clients for the Brook House Public Inquiry. The Public Inquiry investigated mistreatment and abuse of detained persons at Brook House in 2017, following undercover reporting by BBC Panorama. I represented 12 formerly detained persons who had experienced or witnessed abuse, and a former G4S manager-turned-whistleblower. The Inquiry’s final report was published in September 2023, in which the Chair found multiple incidents capable of amounting to inhuman and degrading treatment under Article 3 ECHR. She made 33 recommendations on dangerous practices the Home Office needed to rectify and to ensure lessons were learnt.
• Kaitey v SSHD [2021] EWCA Civ 1875 (Court of Appeal); Kaitey v SSHD [2020] EWHC 1861 (Admin) – challenge to whether conditional immigration bail under Schedule 10 Immigration Act 2016 can be imposed on a person if it would be unlawful to detain them.
• Habeb v SSHD [2021] EWHC 177 – High Court ordered release of an Egyptian national from immigration detention who was held for over 20 months despite no prospect of his removal. A grace period of only 48 hours for the Home Office to source accommodation was ordered. The case subsequently settled for substantial damages.
• Merca v SSHD [2020] EWHC 1479 – High Court ordered release of an immigration detainee held for over 6 months without a sufficient prospect of removal. A grace period of only four days for the Home Office to source accommodation was ordered. The case subsequently settled for substantial damages.
• Soltany & Ors v SSHD [2020] EWHC 2291. Challenge to the lock-in regime and conditions at Brook House IRC. Although dismissed, the litigation helped force reform to the regime and conditions at the centre.
• MA & BB v SSHD [2019] EWHC 1523 – A successful challenge against the Home Secretary’s failure to institute an effective Article 3 ECHR-compliant investigation into abuse of detainees at Brook House IRC. The case has led to the Home Secretary establishing the Brook House Public Inquiry.
• IS (Bangladesh) v SSHD [2019] EWHC 2700 – The Court found that the detention under immigration powers of a young Bengali man, with clear mental health needs and evidence of suicidal intentions, was unlawful for 5 months. It was also found that managing the man’s suicide risk by placing him on constant watch for a continuous period of 75 days was an unlawful interference with his rights to physical and moral integrity under Article 8 ECHR.
• Hussein v SSHD & Anor [2018] EWHC 213 – The lock-in regime at Brook House IRC was found to constitute indirect discrimination to Muslim detainees, contrary to Art 14 ECHR (read with Art 9 ECHR), who were forced to undertake some of their mandatory prayers during the lock-in regime next to unscreened and unsanitary toilets, and in potentially cramped conditions. The Court also found the SSHD had failed to have due regard to her section 149 duty under the Equality Act 2010 with regard to the lock-in regime at Brook House IRC. Additionally, the Court found that the SSHD’s policy of over 10 years of allowing smoking inside Brook House and other privately-contracted IRCs was unlawful and contrary to the Health Act 2006.
• Medical Justice + Ors v SSHD [2017] EWHC 2461 - Successful challenge to the SSHD’s decision to restrict the definition of torture in the Adults at Risk in Immigration Detention policy so that only those tortured by State actors could be considered eligible for release due to vulnerability. On behalf of the Duncan Lewis Claimants, we obtained interim relief in November 2016 to revert back to the original definition of torture (to include those tortured by non-state actors) pending the final outcome of proceedings, thereby severely restricting the impact of the unlawful policy to potentially thousands of detainees.
• Muasa v SSHD [2017] EWHC 2267 (Admin); TM (Kenya) v SSHD [2019] EWCA Civ 784 (Court of Appeal) – First successful challenge to the use of segregation in immigration detention. An unauthorised period of segregation beyond 24 hours was found to be unlawful and in breach of Article 8 ECHR. Failure to provide published guidance on segregation found to be lawful.
• HN and Ors v SSHD (JR – scope - evidence)(IJR) [2015] UKUT 437 (Upper Tribunal); HN and SA (Afghanistan) v. SSHD [2016] EWCA Civ 123 EWCA (Court of Appeal) - Large group litigation challenging removals to Afghanistan on the basis of the continued deteriorating country situation, which led to a number of unprecedented orders preventing mass removals to the country by way of charter flights. The Home Office subsequently suspended using charter flights to Afghanistan.