High Court Rules Home Office Failed to Protect Vulnerable Detainees (15 December 2025)

The High Court has determined that there has been an unlawful failure of the Home Office’s system designed to protect vulnerable persons in immigration detention from inhuman and degrading treatment under Article 3 ECHR at Brook House Immigration Removal Centre (IRC).

In handing down her judgment on 15 December 2025 in AH and IS v SSHD [2025] EWHC 3269, Mrs Justice Jefford found that at least from 28 July 2023 until 11 March 2024, there was a breach of the systems duty under Article 3 in respect of the operation of Rule 35 of the Detention Centre Rules 2001.

Rule 35 requires medical practitioners employed at IRCs to issue reports to the Home Office when they have concerns about specific vulnerabilities that might make a person unsuitable for immigration detention, so that the Home Office can urgently review their continued detention. Mrs Justice Jefford was specifically concerned about reports under Rule 35(1) and Rule 35(2) which require medical practitioners to issue reports where there are (1) concerns that detention might be injurious to a person’s health or (2) where they suspect an immigration detainee might have suicidal intentions.

The claim was brought by two immigration detainees, AH and IS, who were held at Brook House IRC between 2023 and 2024. Both had previous histories of being detained with clinical evidence that detention had worsened their mental illness and increased their self-harm and suicide risk. When re-detained in 2023, both Claimants again displayed worsening mental illness and signs of serious self-harm and suicidality. They had both spent a period at Brook House IRC under ‘constant supervision’ of detention officers under the Assessment Care in Detention and Teamwork (‘ACDT’) process, on the basis they were at serious risk of carrying out acts of self-harm which could lead to suicide. Despite this and their known histories of mental illness and self-harm, neither AH nor IS were issued a report under Rule 35(1) or (2) to trigger an urgent review of the suitability of their detention.

The Judge found that the Home Secretary was aware at the time of the Claimants’ detention in 2023, that there was significant evidence that the system had not been working for many years, and that many of these issues were known about at least as far back as 2017. The Judge relied upon reports of failings of Rule 35 from detention oversight bodies such as His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons (‘HMCIP’), the Independent Monitoring Board (‘IMB’) and the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (‘ICIBI’). The Judge also had the benefit of the findings of the 2023 report of the Chair of the Brook House Public Inquiry who was “gravely concerned about the dysfunctions in the operation of these layers of safeguards” when it came to the operation of Rule 35 and related policies. That Inquiry had been set up to investigate credible allegations of inhuman and degrading treatment at Brook House after a detention officer secretly filmed for BBC Panorama showing detainees being abused by officers in the IRC in 2017.

In making her judgment on the systems breach, the Judge was particularly concerned with the ‘disconnect’ between those being managed under the ACDT process, particularly those on ‘constant supervision’, and the very few reports issued under Rule 35(1) and (2). Having noted there were no reports under Rule 35(2) at Brook House between 2017 to 2021[1], the Judge went on to summarise the statistics from 2022-2024 at paragraph 233:

“(i)       In the 2022 calendar year, there were 216 ACDTs opened; 17 Rule 35(1) reports and 10 Rule 35(2) reports.  Up to October 2022, there were 104 constant supervisions enacted.

(ii)        In the 2023 calendar year, there were 239 ACDTs opened, 19 Rule 35(1) reports and 4 Rule 35(2) reports. Data for constant supervision was not available.

(iii)       From June 2023 to June 2024, there were 260 ACDTs opened, 17 Rule 35(1) report and 3 Rule 35(2) reports.  In the same period there were 67 constant supervisions enacted..”

The Judge found the Home Secretary provided no convincing answer or evidence to justify why there were so few Rule 35 reports, particularly for suicide risk, set against the number of people each year under constant supervision at Brook House.

The Judge concluded that: “Since at least the period covered by the Brook House Inquiry there is a clear and persistent picture of a failure of the system intended to protect the Article 3 rights of adults at risk.  It is characterised by a failure to apply properly or at all the provisions of Rule 35 [248]… The statistics as to the numbers of Rule 35(1) and (2) reports speak for themselves particularly when compared with the numbers of ACDTs and constant supervisions.  It is inconceivable that if the system were operating effectively, the numbers would be so low [250].” She found that the figures alone “called for an answer” but found no explanation in the evidence provided by the Home Secretary, and further found that there had not been “any or any satisfactory evidence that, between 2017 (the period covered by the Inquiry) and the period in issue in these cases, any effective steps were taken to address the failure in the system. [252]”

She found that “The experiences of AH and IS are properly regarded as emblematic of this failure and the disconnected system and evidence that during the period with which these claims are concerned nothing had changed.” [253]

The Judge also made several other findings of unlawfulness in relation to AH’s immigration detention:

1. He was found to be unlawfully detained for the entire period of his immigration detention, between 2 December 2023 and 11 March 2024, on the basis the Home Office had repeatedly failed to take into account evidence of his vulnerability at the start and throughout his detention.
2. He was found to be unlawfully removed from association (segregated) at Brook House on 2 February 2024;
3. Force used by a detention operations manager on 2 February 2024 was found to be unlawful on the basis that he was not accredited at the time to act as an immigration officer (so was not permitted to use force);
4. Uses of force and removal from association on other dates were also found to be unlawful on the basis that his detention was unlawful;
5. He was found to have unlawfully been subject to a filmed strip search on 1 February 2024, in breach of policy and Article 8 ECHR.

Prior to the hearing, the Home Office had already conceded the detention of the Claimant IS, in its entirety. Astonishingly, this is the second time in which IS’s immigration detention has been found to be unlawful, having previously been found by the High Court in 2019:  IS (Bangladesh) v SSHD [2019] EWHC 2700. He had very similar experiences in his previous detention in relation to a deterioration of his mental health, self-harming and suicide risk and advanced many of the same arguments regarding the failures of Rule 35. And yet the Home Office ignored the history and extraordinarily exposed him to  the same risks again.

AH’s solicitor, Lewis Kett, stated of the judgment: “Our clients welcome this important judgment that not only was their own detention and treatment at Brook House IRC unlawful, but that their experiences are emblematic of a sustained failure by the Home Secretary over a number of years to properly run systems that safeguard vulnerable people in detention from serious harm. Several organisations, from statutory oversight bodies to NGOs, have repeatedly expressed their concern about the dysfunctionality of how Rule 35 has operated. The Brook House Inquiry into mistreatment of immigration detainees came to the same conclusion in 2023. But these concerns were not properly addressed and the system continued to fail, at least up to 2024. This has put countless immigration detainees with serious mental illness or suicidality at a real risk of harm. We urge the Home Secretary to urgently review the operation of Rule 35, to listen to our clients and those organisations who have repeatedly warned of its failures, and to implement changes that ensure adequate protection for those not suitable to be in immigration detention.”

IS’s Solicitor, Jamie Bell stated: ‘It is astonishing that the Home Office have not learned the lessons; both from the Brook House Inquiry and even IS’s own previous unlawful detention. IS should not have been detained again and the decision to authorise and maintain detention demonstrates a litany of failures by the Home Office. Until the Home Secretary takes strong action to fix the failures that have been outlined in this judgment, vulnerable individuals such as IS and AH will continue to be harmed by immigration detention.

The Claimant AH was represented by Lewis Kett and Nicholas Hughes, of Duncan Lewis Solicitors, instructing Nick Armstrong KC and Toby Fisher of Matrix Chambers.

The Claimant IS was represented by Jamie Bell and Elleanor Wilkins Bell, of Duncan Lewis Solicitors, instructing Nick Armstrong KC and Darryl Hutcheon of Matrix Chambers.

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