Brook House: Home Office taken to court over detention centre

Brook House immigration removal centre, near Gatwick Airport, can hold up to 448 detainees

Three Afghan refugees are taking legal action against the Home Office claiming conditions at an immigration centre were unlawful.

The three men who were detained at the then G4S-run Brook House, near Gatwick Airport in 2017 or 2018 say detainees were locked up for 11 hours overnight.

The High Court heard the regime broke their right to liberty and privacy.

The West Sussex centre has been under scrutiny since the BBC's Panorama filmed undercover in 2017.

The three men claim that the "lock-in regime" at Brook House - with detainees confined to their rooms between 21:00 and 08:00 every day, which the Home Office refers to as "the night state" - breached their right to liberty and privacy.

They claim the regime subjected them to "an unlawful, discriminatory and/or disproportionate interference" with practising Muslims' right to religious freedom as they had to pray in their cells.

The three Afghan men have all now obtained refugee or humanitarian protection status

Opening the claimants' case Stephanie Harrison QC said: "From its outset, Brook House has operated and continues to operate the most restrictive regime, based on a category B prison, of prolonged and multiple lock-ins which significantly curtail and restrict the residual liberties and freedoms of administrative detainees."

She said the Home Office had "in effect surrendered and/or abdicated its responsibilities to set the minimum standards and conditions required."

Thomas Roe QC, for the Home Office, said in written submissions "all immigration removal centres have a 'night state"'.

He said the Home Office's contract with G4S meant the Secretary of State could "alter the hours of the night state if she so wished."

He told the court: "While it is true that Brook House is a secure environment and was built to Prison Service category B standard, it does not follow that detention there is like incarceration as a prisoner at a category B prison."

Mr Justice Cavanagh, who will hear the case over three days, is expected to reserve his judgment.