CROYDON IN CRISIS: Another costly legal defeat over housing, as High Court Judge finds our local authority acted deliberately in contravention of its responsibilities under the European Convention on Human Rights. EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES
Court out badly again: another judge has ruled against lawyers hired by Croydon Council
The High Court has given another damning judgement against Croydon Council, finding that the authority subjected a disabled asylum seeker to inhuman and degrading treatment for months.
It is the latest significant reversal suffered in the higher courts by Croydon Council – with each case costing tax-payers hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Last year, Inside Croydon reported how the council had lost a housing case brought at the Court of Appeal by a wheelchair-bound mother, and yet officials still spent another year accumulating costly legal fees by going to the Supreme Court to argue, again, that Croydon did not have to fulfil its legal duties to provide housing.
Croydon Council duly lost the Supreme Court hearing, too.
Yet the council’s appetite for fighting losing battles through the courts – all generously funded by the borough’s long-suffering residents – did not end there, though.
According to Garden Court Chambers, they helped to bring a case on behalf of an asylum seeker, referred to in court documents only as only as TMX, which found that Croydon Council subjected him to “degrading treatment contrary to Article 3 [European Convention on Human Rights] and breached his Article 8 ECHR rights, for a period of at least seven months”.
Council’s losing brief: monitoring officer Stephen Lawrence-Orumwense
The High Court also held that Croydon Council had breached its duties under the Care Act 2014 in failing to assess TMX’s “accommodation-related” needs and failing to provide suitable accommodation for him and his family. Sound familiar?
The judgement was handed down at the end of January by Mr Alan Bates (no, not that Mr Bates), sitting as Deputy High Court Judge.
Croydon Council has never mentioned in any of its press releases issued by its propaganda department that it lost this case. Nothing has been said publicly about this latest lost case by council chief exec Katherine Kerswell or by the borough’s most senior legal official, Stephen Lawrence-Orumwense. Nor have there been any quotes released from the borough’s part-time Mayor and full-time rent-a-gob, Jason Perry.
And you won’t find any mention of this important High Court ruling on Croydon Council’s website. Ahhh, if only Judge Bates had made that one of the conditions of his judgement…
Garden Court Chambers says that the lengthy and detailed judgement is “a rare example of a local authority being found in breach of Article 3 ECHR for its failure to comply with its duties to provide care and support, including accommodation”.
The lawyers for TMX say: “As far as we are aware, it is the first time that a local authority has been found… to be in breach of Article 3 ECHR by reason of a failure to perform its duties under the Care Act.”
Croydon managed to take the rap when they weren’t even providing the unsuitable accommodation, which was provided by the Home Office.
“The requisite intent was made out by the local authority’s knowledge of TMX’s situation and the intentional choice to leave him in manifestly unsuitable accommodation for a substantial period,” according to the lawyers for the claimant.
TMX is 50 and a wheelchair user with progressive multiple sclerosis and functional neurological disorder. He suffers from severe and varied nerve pain – called parasthaesia – and also has strong muscle spasms. He describes the pain he experiences as “agonising”.
From June 2022, TMX, his wife and two children were accommodated by the Home Office under Section 95 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 in one ensuite bedroom in a hotel in the Croydon area. The court heard that the room measured just 5metres by 3.5metres.
‘Council made intentional choice to leave claimant in unsuitable accommodation’
“The accommodation was manifestly unsuitable for TMX,” Garden Court Chambers said.
“The room was on the fourth floor. The lift could only just fit his wheelchair and could not take him all the way to street level. The building had steps at the front and the platform lift was out of order the majority of the time. TMX was therefore in effect confined to the building, and at significant risk in the event of a fire.
“The bedroom was too small for him to store and use his disability-related equipment. The bathroom was inaccessible and did not have adapted toilet [or] shower facilities. The lack of space for him to mobilise using equipment meant he was bedbound. The room was badly ventilated, and TMX would become unbearably hot in the summer months, exacerbating his MS symptoms.
“The room afforded TMX no privacy from his children for his personal care. His children had to look away, or wait in the communal hallway when his wife provided his personal care as he lay in bed. This care involved helping him to urinate into bottles or have a strip wash, as he could not access the bathroom.
“Later, he also required catheter care in the same room, something that was very difficult to keep private from his children.”
And in this case brought against Croydon Council, just as in the earlier housing case involving the disabled mum “there was no dispute” over the authority’s legal responsibilities. “The local authority’s own assessments acknowledged the unsuitability of the accommodation.”
In this case, Croydon’s top team of legal eagles tried to pass the buck to the Home Office. “Responsibility for providing him with suitable accommodation was said to lie with the Secretary of State.”
In a detailed judgement handed down on January 26, the Court held that the local authority had breached its duties under the Care Act 2014 in failing to identify TMX’s “accommodation-related” needs for care and support, and by failing to provide accommodation to him and his family.
In Judge Bates’s written judgement, he said, “I am in no doubt that the position contended for by the claimant and by the Secretary of State is right and that the council does have a duty to provide the claimant with suitable accommodation…
“… That is a conclusion I would have reached even if there were no relevant case law to assist me, since I would have considered myself led to it by reading the relevant legislation…”, which kind of sounds like a bit of a put-down for Croydon’s lawyers.
By failing to provide suitable accommodation to TMX and his family, the judge also considered how the council had breached his human rights.
Critical judgement: Deputy High Court Judge Alan Bates
“A finding of a violation of Article 3 is, by its very nature, a serious and significant finding which should not lightly be made.”
The judge said: “I have no doubt that the council’s prolonged failure to provide him with suitable accommodation, by causing his daily life to be so diminished, has given rise to ‘an imminent prospect of serious suffering caused or materially aggravated by [that] refusal’; indeed, it has actually caused and aggravated serious suffering.
“… The council knew of the claimant’s unacceptable accommodation situation and its impacts on him, but nevertheless left him to remain in that accommodation for a prolonged period whilst the council denied responsibility…
“… In my judgment, the council made an intentional choice to leave the claimant, for a substantial period, living in unsuitable accommodation in circumstances where it knew very well that this would lead to his conditions of daily living continuing to be severely impaired.
“Subjection of the claimant to those conditions was a virtually certain consequence of the council’s refusal to provide accommodation for him. In that sense, the council intended to subject the claimant to those conditions; conditions which I have found were sufficiently bad that they crossed the Article 3 severity threshold.”
Which all seems to suggest that this was no “mistake” by housing officials, but a deliberate policy decision by senior figures working at Croydon Council.
Monica Kreel, TMX’s instructing solicitor, said, “This is a fantastic judgement for our client and for other disabled asylum seekers.
“The High Court has recognised that Croydon Council, in ignoring our client’s dire accommodation and refusing to resolve the situation when it had a duty to do so, breached his Article 3 and 8 rights. He has now, finally, been moved to a small flat where he is receiving his care with dignity.”
Read more: A Christmas present to Croydon: another court victory
Read more: ‘You seem to be trying to put the genie back in the bottle’
Read more: Council’s lawyers take case all the way to Supreme Court in attempt to deny disabled mother her legal housing rights
Read more: How blind man took on the council – and won £66,000 in costs
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“Misfeasance is a form of misconduct, and it occurs when a public official, public servant or public body knowingly and willingly acts to cause loss or harm to a third party.”
Knowingly and deliberately inflicting such cruelty is surely a criminal offence? Someone very senior has made that decision, admitted it in court and…..nothing.
Good point, Brian.
But who’s going to report it to the authorities? Not the council’s monitoring officer…
It is appalling that Croydon Council knew this person was left in dreadful living conditions and did nothing about it
It is also appalling that Croydon Council is wasting our money fighting this in the law courts
It is also appalling that this is far from the first time that the council has attempted to use the courts to overturn its legal responsibilities.
These decisions are being taken by very senior council staff, and all while expenditure is supposedly being overseen by the “improvement” panel.
Perhaps Mayor Perry would care to explain why he has allowed these cases to be pursued while he has been in office?
Or perhaps councillors can ask him about this at the next meeting of full council?
The Conservatives and the far-right fringe merchants like Reform want to abolish the Human Rights Act. Their propaganda merchants repeat their mantra that it is “hated”.
These are the rights they are plotting to remove:
– The right to life (e.g. Boris saying “let the bodies pile high” during Covid)
– The prohibition of torture and inhuman treatment
– Protection against slavery and forced labour
– The right to liberty and freedom
– The right to a fair trial and no punishment without law
– Respect for privacy and family life and the right to marry
– Freedom of thought, religion and belief
– Free speech and peaceful protest
– No discrimination: everyone’s rights are equal
– Protection of property
– The right to an education
– The right to free elections
Cases like this one show how low they’ll go with someone they regard as powerless
What is wrong with Croydon council that they can (1) think it’s ok to let a disabled person live in such awful circumstances and (2) think that they have right to break the law with impunity?
Can we find the person(s) who made the decision to pursue this court case and ensure that they are financially penalised? We can’t afford any more of these absurd and hopeless cases.
Greed from the top woman with her top job and paid salaries down to her management board. One law for them nothing fits nor benefits the public. Totally broken system operated by greed and power….