On Friday the High Court found that the Home Secretary acted unlawfully by withdrawing the right for asylum seekers to have negative trafficking decisions reconsidered which has had the effect of expediting returns of some Medical Justice clients who arrived by small boat from France, without full consideration of relevant evidence (including medical evidence).
Read the Guardian article (10th July) about the case here.
On Tuesday 14th July the Guardian reported that the Home Office is set to ignore the High Court ruling and continue sending asylum seekers to France without looking into claims they have been trafficked. Home Office sources told the Guardian that operational activity could continue despite the ruling.
The judicial review was brought by five asylum seekers, including three Medical Justice clients, who had been detained under the ‘one-in one-out’ UK-France deal . The ‘one-in one-out’ deal means one person who has travelled from France to the UK on a small boat is detained and forcibly returned to France in exchange for another asylum seeker in France who has not attempted to cross the Channel.
Four of the asylum seekers are from Eritrea and one from Sudan. They challenged a change in Home Office guidance which meant they no longer had the right to ask for negative trafficking decisions to be reconsidered ; hugely important, not least because the rate of negative decisions has drastically increased and in 2025 79% of reconsidered decisions led to a positive outcome.
The judgment is likely to have significant implications as many asylum seekers who arrive in small boats are survivors of trafficking, especially if they have passed through Libya on their journey to the UK as many have.
The vast majority of Medical Justice’s 71 clients who have been detained so far under the ‘one-in one-out’ scheme have reported histories of trafficking and/or torture.
The Guardian reports that “Since the scheme started last August it is likely that more than 1,000 people have been removed to France under the scheme. Many have subsequently disappeared. Hundreds more small boat arrivals are in UK detention centres awaiting forced return to France.”
The Court found that the amendment to the reconsideration policy meant that for certain category of cases, relevant evidence casting doubt on the correctness of a trafficking decision would be disregarded. “That further evidence might include material contained in a report under Rule 35 of the Detention Centre Rules 2001, or medico-legal report, following concerns about the mental or physical well-being of a detainee. That evidence might be in the process of being obtained at the time that the relevant trafficking decision was being taken, or may only be available after the decision is made.”
One of our clients said:
“It is really a feeling of hopelessness that I have. I believe that the Home Office had all the evidence in my case, but chose not to consider this. In their doing so, they failed to consider my case properly. I truly believe if they had properly considered my evidence, I would not have been returned to France.”
Jodie Spencer from Duncan Lewis Solicitors, our client’s representative, said:
“Medical Justice played an invaluable role in the preparation of legal cases for highly vulnerable individuals detained under the UK-France scheme. … given the pace at which removals are taking place, it is often extremely difficult to find medical experts to assess clients, not least those who are willing to travel to immigration removal centres to conduct face-to-face assessments. Medical Justice went above and beyond to assess our clients, in-person, as many times as required. The experts produced comprehensive and thorough reports, many of which were referred to in Court. Indeed, in the case of the lead Claimant KAG in the recent High Court case concerning the treatment of victims of trafficking under the UK-France Scheme, the Court found that the Home Secretary acted unlawfully in failing to consider crucial evidence in his case, including his Medical Justice medico-legal report. … a number of highly vulnerable clients who were ultimately dropped out of the UK-France Scheme did rely on Medical Justice reports as evidence of their vulnerabilities and needs. Many have since gone on to be formally recognised of victims of trafficking and will have their substantive asylum claims considered in the UK”.
A Medical Justice spokesperson said;
“Diminishing protections is symptomatic of the government’s reprehensible attitude to trafficking survivors. Our clients’ independent expert medical evidence is ignored and their trafficking disclosures are treated as an inconvenient impediment to removal. The government must now reinstate the right to request a reconsideration for all and scrap this arbitrary and dehumanising ‘one-in one-out’ scheme.”
This judgement highlights that two medical reports can be crucial – a Rule 35 safeguarding report from the Immigration Removal Centre (IRC) and/or a medico-legal report. Medical Justice is the only charity to send independent clinicians into all the UK’s IRCs to produce medico-legal reports. The Rule 35 process has been found to be completely dysfunctional which has led to disturbing levels of inhuman and degrading treatment in IRCs and right now the Home Office is introducing changes that will decimate its intended safeguarding effect.” Medical Justice published its research report “Politics over people? How the UK’s “one in one out” scheme knowingly harms and forcibly removes torture and trafficking survivors to France” in January 2026, the first comprehensive analysis of the backgrounds, experiences and mistreatment of 33 clients detained in immigration removal centres (IRCs) under the ‘one-in one-out’ UK-France Treaty.
Medical Justice has been documenting the harm experienced by people held in immigration removal centres (IRCs) for two decades – what sets the mistreatment of clients detained under the ‘one-in one-out’ scheme apart is the combination of an especially high proportion of trafficking and torture survivors, alarming levels of suicidality, and the fact that almost all of them experienced dysfunction of the clinical safeguarding system, exposing them to the severe harm detention in the UK is known to cause.
Notes
- The number of people released by the Home Office in response to safeguarding reports from IRC healthcare units on people detained under the ‘one-in one-out’ policy is so low that it risks rendering the whole process of clinical safeguards meaningless.
- Independent clinicians from Medical Justice who assessed 20 clients in detention found that all 20 had clinical evidence of a history of torture, ill-treatment and/or trafficking, and all 20 had serious mental health conditions. Our clinicians document the clinical consequences of the use of force and segregation to facilitate removals.
- Only three had a report by the IRC GP identifying they were likely to be injuriously affected by detention as they should have done. One of the 17 that did not get a report deteriorated in detention and was hospitalised.
- 12 out of the 20 people our clinicians assessed had suicidal thoughts. One person attempted to take their own life, five were identified as being at risk of self-harm and/or suicide by the IRC, with one put on constant suicide watch, yet only one had a safeguarding report as they should have done from the IRC to flag suspected suicidal intentions to the Home Office who should review if detention is to be continued.
