AC-2025-LDS-000036 - [2025] EWHC 2641 (Admin)

The Claimant, Thye Loi Ho, challenges the decision of the Secretary of State for the Home Department (“SSHD”) dated 23 October 2024 refusing his request that his immigration bail accommodation should be located in Essex, preferably near Southend (“the First Decision”). The Claim was issued on 23 January 2025 but was stayed by agreement of the parties pending the Claimant having to appeal, and send a pre-action protocol letter before claim, in relation to, a refusal to grant funding by the Legal Aid Agency. Legal Aid was granted on 9 April 2025 and the stay lifted thereafter. During the currency of these proceedings, further information was provided to the SSHD and a further decision was issued on 12 June 2025. The Claimant filed an application to amend his Grounds to cover the further decision on the basis that it amounted simply to confirmation of the earlier decision with supplementary reasons. If, as the Defendant asserts, it was a fresh decision, the Claimant’s application should have been to seek permission to challenge a further decision. However, both Counsel agreed that it would make no sense at all to consider the issues in the case without also considering the effect of the SSHD’s letter of 12 June 2025, which I shall refer to as the June 2025 decision. It was agreed that I should deal with all matters raised in the Amended Statement of Facts and Grounds, and that I should focus on the June 2025 decision. This effectively superseded the First Decision, although Mr Holborn submitted I should look at the decisions as a whole.

In his application dated 4 August 2025, the Claimant had also applied to adduce further evidence being a further Witness Statement from the Claimant dated 6 August 2025, and an expert psychiatric report by Dr Katona, dated 20 May 2025 but first served with the application. Mr Holborn, Counsel for the Defendant, opposed this application on the basis that neither document was available to the SSHD when the decisions were made. Whilst Counsel for the Claimant, Mr Ogilvie-Harris, accepted that in those circumstances they could not be relevant to any assessment of the SSHD’s decision making processes, he submitted they would be matters I could and should take into account if I reached the position of undertaking my own Article 8 proportionality assessment. Mr Holborn did not accept that, but I allowed the Claimant to adduce the evidence solely for the purpose suggested by Mr Ogilvie-Harris and subject to argument in the course of the substantive hearing as to whether or not I could properly consider it in that context.

References in this Judgment to the hearing bundle will be in bold type face, with the Tab letter and page number, for example D58. References to the authorities bundle will be by the letters AB followed by the page number, for example. AB63.