News

DPG acting for five clients in an important case about systemic issues with section 4 support.

A hearing is underway in the Planning Court in a challenge brought by DPG client Lisa Smith to the definition of Gypsies and Travellers used by local authorities when making decisions about housing Gypsy and Traveller communities and the development of their land. The current...

The High Court has today ordered the Home Office to provide by 20 December 2018 their proposed terms of reference for the inquiry into the abuse of detainees at Brook House Immigration Removal Center and to provide by 10 January 2019 details of how victims will...

The High Court of Justice has today handed down judgment dismissing claims against the Home and Levelling Up Secretaries by our client Gabriel Clarke-Holland, and by Braintree District Council and West Lindsey District Council, that challenged plans to set up asylum accommodation centres to house...

Our client and her disabled son’s caravan on a float has been granted security under the Mobile Homes Act 1983 by the Residential Property Tribunal. Our client and her son live on a caravan on a float in a marina. They were served with notice...

The Supreme Court found in favour of our client Ms Imam in her challenge against London Borough of Croydon today, confirming that if a council are asserting that they are unable to fulfil their statutory duty they need to provide evidence of this – a bald assertion is insufficient.

The High Court has ruled that it will consider, for the first time, whether universities owe a legal duty not to damage the mental health of their students.  In a separate development, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has been granted permission to intervene in...

The Brook House Inquiry, set up to investigate mistreatment and abuse of detained people by G4S in Brook House, commenced public hearings  on 23 November 2021. The Brook House Inquiry is unprecedented. It is the first public inquiry into immigration detention in the United Kingdom....

The Government has at long last announced a public inquiry into the human rights abuses at Brook House Immigration Removal Centre. The Home Secretary made the announcement to Parliament yesterday that the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman investigation of Brook House is converted to a statutory...

The Court of Appeal has allowed our client’s appeal having concluded that the planning policy definition of ‘Gypsies and Travellers’ adopted by the government in 2015 discriminated against elderly and disabled members of the Gypsy and Traveller communities, by requiring them to demonstrate that they...

Two local councils and local resident Gabriel Clarke-Holland are in the High Court today arguing that the Home Office’s plan to use former military bases to house asylum-seekers is unlawful. But just before the hearing, our client discovered that the Home Secretary has a secret plan to bypass planning controls and go ahead with the centres for three years, by putting a Special Development Order before Parliament.

A year ago this week (on 24 October 2020) Stephen Knafler QC tragically died, well before his time. Stephen worked with DPG on many cases involving migrants’ access to healthcare and housing. He also co-wrote the LAG “Support for Asylum Seekers and Other Migrants” Handbook...