Home > Areas of Law > Unlawful detention

The loss of liberty is a very serious loss of a right protected under both the common law and human rights. If detention is still on going, then urgent applications can be made to the High Court. If the detention has been concluded, but was unlawful, a declaration and or damages can be sought in the High Court, and damages in the County Court. 

Habeas corpus 

​​Habeas corpus literally means to bring the body before the Court. It is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, to bring the prisoner to court, to determine whether the detention is lawful.

Judicial Review

Often in Immigration matters and other detention cases, the right of the state to detain, is linked to the underlying immigration decision. As such it is often the case, that the decision, and the decision to detain are challenged by why of judicial review. Once a deceleration of the lawfulness of detention is secured, the matter can often be transferred to resolve the issue of damages. 

Damages

Once unlawful detention is established or accepted by the detaining party, and the individual has been released the remain issue is in respect to damages. Damages are based on the number of days detained, whether there was any lawful detention, and other aggravating factors. The determination of damages often requires consideration of many factors and advice from an expert advocate. 

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Calculate your damages for unlawful detention 

There are two broad starting points to the calculation of damages which are whether you were lawful in detention when the unlawful detention happened, or the detention was always unlawful from the start.  

Unlawful detention at start

An example would be where a British national is detained under immigration powers, and therefore could never have been lawfully detained 

Lawful detention at the start

An example would be where a prisoner release has been authorised, by the Court, but the Order is not followed for a period of time.