Windrush Justice Case Studies

Claudia Jones Organisation and United Legal Access

In this case study, two Windrush Justice Programme organisations paint a picture of the complexity of the Compensation scheme, and the need for specialist legal support to help claimants navigate appeals to zero-offer outcomes. 

Mr A called Claudia Jones Organisation (CJO) service after receiving a word-of-mouth referral from an associate that we could support his father’s compensation claim. Mr A is in his 60’s, lives in a one-bedroom flat in inner city London and is a father to a primary age child. He came to us in July 2021.  

At the time of referral, Mr A’s father had passed away not too long before. Before his passing, Mr A’s father had applied for his citizenship via the Windrush scheme. Mr A’s father received his ILR status two months before he passed away. 

Upon confirmation of his status, he immediately submitted his compensation claim. Unfortunately, due to his passing Mr A had to then step in to manage his late father’s affairs. The Windrush Justice scheme gave the family a preliminary award of £5000, which went directly towards the funeral and burial of Mr A’s father. At the time of referral Mr A was going through the probate process to be able to manage his father’s claim. It was at this point we identified how prevalent the probate process would be to the scheme and how little information was available/given by the scheme on this process. 

Upon referral Mr A was assigned to one of our legal partners United Legal Access. He was also assigned a Windrush compensation caseworker from within the Home Office scheme. He stated he was quite happy with the worker initially; this worker had reassured him that with the evidence that they had reviewed it is highly likely for a positive compensation award. This turned out not to be the case, as Mr A’s father claim was rejected. His assigned legal support was informed, and they began preparing his claim appeal. 

Mr A is very proactive – although he was receiving support from the Windrush Justice Clinic, he continued to research and seek further advice from other service providers.

He booked an appointment with ‘We are digital’; this appointment was 5.7 miles from Mr A’s home and his primary mode of transport is public transport. Understanding the initial primary demographic for the compensation scheme were 70+, it was shocking to Mr A how inaccessible government support was. He said he found the appointment ‘useless’, he went there aiming to get help reviewing his father’s initial claim.

He was told that they were unable to support him, and they were only trained to provide language support and had little to knowledge of claims process, beyond the initial form. 

When the family received the rejection statement, Mr A attempted to contact his Windrush caseworker and at this point was told he was no longer allowed to communicate with his assigned worker. This was very disheartening for him, which is when his appeal journey began. 

Windrush Justice cases require collating and preparing of evidence to support the application. This a time-consuming process and another aspect which further reinforces the need for legal support within the scheme. In Mr A’s case this process included submitting several ‘Freedom of Information’ requests to institutions such as Customs, Home Office and two London local authorities. FOIs from Customs are given a 10-week response time. In regard to one of the local authorities, we initially had no response to the first FOI and had to chase. 

Preparing the appeal took several months, and upon submission Mr A was extremely anxious as he had been doing further research on the scheme and was finding negative experience reviews, including a close friend who he referred to CJO for support also. Mr A was struggling financially and was awarded twice from our Windrush support fund, which included the purchase of new white goods for home. An extension had to be requested for this due to information requests not being fulfilled.  

Within six weeks Mr A received his appeals decision, and it upheld the original decision not to award compensation to Mr A’s father in mid 2022. Mr A’s legal support advised that this case involved complex immigration law and referred it back into the WJC as well as signposting some other immigration Barristers.  This further highlighted to us how necessary legal support is at all levels to effectively support clients undergoing the scheme. 

Mr A is currently going through the Tier 2 process, and he is quite disheartened and untrusting of the entire scheme and the systems in place. He has recently been referred to counselling via our internal service hoping this can help him cope with everything he is still going through.