£150k bid over ‘hurt feelings’
AN AFGHAN refugee has launched a legal bid for £150,000 compensation from the Home Office because his feelings were hurt after being held for less than a month while awaiting deportation.
The man, who cannot be identified, was locked up in Campsfield House immigration centre in Oxfordshire in 2005 after a judge ruled he might disappear to avoid being returned to Afghanistan. He was released after 22 days and later won an appeal to stay in 2007.
The refugee – who now lives in Coventry – entered the country illegally in 1999, claiming he was on the run from the Taliban.
Now he has gone to the High Court in London claiming £150,000 in damages for “injury to his feelings” and a breach of his human rights. The sum is the equivalent of more than £6,800 for every day spent in the detention centre. The hearing continues.