Bail for people detained in the prison estate
Individuals detained in the prison estate face additional barriers to applying for bail compared with people detained in the immigration detention estate. The unique challenges for people who are detained in prisons are set out in Immigration detention in the prison estate .
These include:
The lack of Legal Aid Agency immigration legal advice surgeries/consultations, making it much harder to find a legal advisor. In SM v Lord Chancellor [2021] EWHC 418 (Admin) the High Court held that free legal advice must be made available to immigration detainees held in prisons to enable similar access to justice to that of people detained in detention centres. However, a report by Bail for Immigration Detainees in 2022 found that access to justice for immigration detainees in prison was still very limited [1].
Greater restrictions on communication. Home Office bail summaries may not arrive on the wing in enough time for a person detained to read and understand the arguments against their release before the hearing.
Home Office bail accommodation grant letters may arrive on the wing as or after they expire, making it impossible to lodge a bail application.
Failures in Home Office escorting contracts mean that people in detention may not be able to attend the bail hearing in person. If that happens, provision can be made for them to join remotely or for the bail hearing to go ahead in their absence if they are represented and their representative has sufficient instructions.
Video links from prisons are capped at 60 minutes, but some immigration bail hearings take longer, meaning that applicants may not be able to participate in the entire hearing.
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