Solicitors from the Government Legal Department 'made untrue and misleading statements and acted oppressively' when dealing with a Nigerian man’s immigration case, a High Court judge has ruled.
Ruling on damages in Adegboyega v Secretary of State for the Home Department, His Honour Judge Richard Roberts noted that Ibukun Adegboyega had been unlawfully detained at Brook House Immigration Removal Centre, Gatwick, for 88 days in 2017 on the home secretary’s erroneous conclusion he had no right to reside in the UK.
Adegboyega, a Nigerian national, had entered the UK in 2015 with an EEA family permit as the spouse of a Romanian. The judge said: ‘I have found in my judgment in the assessment of damages trial that the defendant and its solicitors have throughout these proceedings made untrue and misleading statements and acted oppressively.’
Finding that Adegboyega was entitled to costs on the indemnity basis, the judge said that the home secretary did not engage with 'cogent and evidence-based representations' by Adegboyega’s solicitors that he was lawfully in the UK as the spouse of an EU national, instead maintaining that he was an overstayer and detaining him until 24 July 2017.’
The judge described the Home Office’s offer to pay only nominal damages as 'another example of the defendant’s oppressive and high-handed conduct'.
The judge ordered the home secretary to pay 100% of the costs of and occasioned by the judicial review proceedings and the five-day trial.
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