Resource

This response to the Ministry of Justice's consultation on civil legal aid draws on HBF’s experience of supporting clients in London who are represented by, or eligible for representation by, legal aid representatives for their asylum and/or immigration matters under the Standard Civil Contract. It draws and builds on our previous submission of February 2024 to the Review of Civil Legal Aid, and includes client data and testimonials from our Ambassadors for Change.

The Helen Bamber Foundation welcomes the High Court’s judgment finding that the Home Secretary acted unlawfully in accommodating victims of trafficking, torture and other extreme human cruelty in RAF Wethersfield. The three claimants in the legal challenge all suffered a significant decline in their mental health as a result of living at Wethersfield. It is shocking that the site remains open given the wealth of evidence showing more widely the serious harm that has been caused to men forced to live there.

This new report shows that child refugees who come to the UK alone are continuing to face harassment, abuse and criminalisation as a result of being wrongly treated as adults and placed in accommodation with adult strangers.  In the first half of 2024 alone, 63 local authorities in England and Scotland received 603 referrals from various stakeholders who suspected young people were being wrongly placed in adult accommodation or detention due to inaccurate Home Office age assessments. In 493 cases where a decision was made on age, over half cases (262) were found to be children.