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Public law director Toufique Hossain will be speaking on a panel at the Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID) event ‘Behind locked doors: Immigration detention in prisons exposed’ to discuss the realities of immigration detention in prisons.

In the UK, every year hundreds of people are being held in immigration detention in prison. At the end of the custodial part of a sentence, instead of being released back into the community, many who do not have leave to remain continue to be locked up.

Many have lived most of their lives in the UK and some were even born here. They are often denied access to legal advice, having to cope with inadequate communication and with many prisons operating a system in which they are locked in their cells for 23 hours a day.

BID is an independent charity founded on the basis that it is unacceptable that those people facing deportation should also be subjected to the punishment and disadvantages that detention in prison brings. Through their research and policy work and by engaging in strategic litigation, they challenge existing policy and practice, as well as pressing for an end to detention. BID also refer cases to lawyers for unlawful detention challenges against the Home Office.

Events such as this one aim to expose the abhorrent injustices that take place behind the locked doors of detention centres and prisons.
Toufique will be joined by Mr L, a former BID client who was detained in prison under immigration powers, as well as May Bulman, Social Affairs Correspondent for the Independent known for her keen interest in immigration and asylum stories and Jess Bicknell, BID Legal Manager who oversees the BID Prisons’ Project.

They will discuss what it is actually like to be detained in prison and ways in which to challenge the system, as well as BID’s dedicated prisons’ project. The purpose of this event is to ensure ways that people subject to immigration control are not deprived of their liberty for administrative convenience.

Toufique’s expertise in this area of law will be of great value to those attending the talk. He has extensive experience in the Administrative Court, Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court, litigating across a broad range of areas and regularly conducting high profile class-action challenges to unlawful policies and practices affecting vulnerable people, including unlawful detention and unlawful removals from the UK.

Toufique has been part of a challenge to the lack of safeguards for people held in prison under immigration powers. Along with Sulaiha Ali and Philip Armitage from the Public Law team and counsel Hugh Southey QC and Raza Halim of Matrix Chambers and Garden Court Chambers respectively, Toufique is representing a number of clients who were held for months in prison, despite being survivors of torture, sexual violence and/or have severe mental health issues.

They argue that in prison there is no equivalent to Rule 34 and 35 of the Detention Centre Rules and this is unreasonable, discriminatory and in breach of the Equality Act 2010.

Whilst the judicial review was unsuccessful, the team continue to be of the view that the absence of these critical safeguards in prison is unlawful and will be seeking permission to appeal this decision to the Court of Appeal.

Furthermore, Toufique is currently preparing a wide challenge to the failures in prison for those held under immigration powers in relation to accessing justice.

The upcoming event will be hosted by Clifford Chance on 29th January at 6pm. There is no charge but booking is essential. Travel expenses are payable for unwaged asylum seekers or migrants by prior arrangement.