We were pleased to hear the news last week that the Supreme Court had dismissed the Home Office’s appeal on the matter of Mr Jalloh’s unlawful curfew, which had been maintained for two years.

We first put the news out about unlawful curfews back in May 2016 after meeting with ITN Solicitors, the lawyers who had just won Mr Gedi’s case at the Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal had found that the Home Office was routinely imposing curfews (after someone obtained release from immigration detention) without any legal power to do so.

It seemed that the findings of this case could affect many others, so we did a write up on our legal blog, and sent the news out on social media and to our network of asylum and migrant groups across the UK. The case got quite a bit of attention, including BBC coverage.

Because of this, Jalloh sought legal advice on his own 11pm to 7am curfew which had been maintained for two years.

Jalloh’s case has had a lengthy journey through the courts, and he was again vindicated in the highest UK court in a hearing last November and a judgment published last week.

The Supreme Court (with Lady Hale as the lead judge) agreed with the Court of Appeal that Jalloh had been falsely imprisoned, and was entitled to damages as a result. The Supreme Court also found that the unlawful curfew amounted to false imprisonment under common law, which was not restricted to the “very different and much more nuanced concept of deprivation of liberty under the European Convention on Human Rights”. Read the Free Movement blog post for more on this.