Home Curfew Unlawful – £4,000 Damages

Queen (on the Application of Ibrahima Jollah) Claimant – and – SSHD (No. 2)

This is the determination of a claim for damages for false imprisonment arising out of the imposition of what has been referred to as a curfew, namely a requirement that the claimant be present for a certain number of hours each day at specified premises (the place where he was required to reside), between 3 February 2014 and 14 July 2016. The requirement had been imposed by the defendant following the claimant’s release from an immigration detention centre. The requirement was imposed pursuant to paragraph 2(5) of Schedule 3 to the Immigration Act 1971 (“the Act”). The Court of Appeal in R (Gedi) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2016] 4 WLR 93 held that that statutory power did not authorise the imposition of such a requirement and that such a condition could only be attached as a condition of the grant of bail. The defendant accepts that the imposition of the requirement, or curfew, in the present case was unlawful.

Conclusion

In the circumstances, the curfew did amount to a detention for the purposes of the tort of false imprisonment. The defendant no longer seeks to argue that the claimant would have been subjected to a curfew and so would not have suffered any injury even if the defendant had not acted unlawfully. In those circumstances, the law requires the payment of compensation for the injury suffered as the result of the imposition of the unlawful curfew. That amounts, in the present case, to £4,000. This is not a case where aggravated damages should be awarded.

Published on Bailii, 09/112017

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2017/2821.html