Kamara v Secretary of State for the Home Department

Mr Kamara successfully challenged his immigration detention.  Following a conviction for working on false documents which carried a 12 month sentence, Mr Kamara was detained pending deportation from July 2009 until his release on bail in December 2012.  During this period, the Defendant abandoned initial attempts to obtain an emergency travel document for Sierra Leone, the country of which Mr Kamara said he was a national, in favour of seeking such a document for Gambia.  This was in part due to an erroneous link the Defendant had made between the Claimant and another, Gambian, individual by the name of Mohammed Camara who had sought to enter the UK in 1993. 

Mr Justice Collins held that although the Defendant had been entitled to investigate the possibility that the Claimant might be from Gambia for other reasons, she had erred in relying so heavily on the alleged link with the Mohammed Camara who had sought to enter in 1993, and as a result had caused unnecessary delays.  This had not been helped by the Defendant’s loss of the original copies of Claimant’s mother’s passport and full birth certificate.  The Defendant could not be proud of the way the Claimant’s case had been dealt with and arrangements should have been made for the Claimant’s release in August 2012, four months prior to his ultimate release on bail.

Naina Patel acted for Mr Kamara.