DAVID BLUNKETT suffered a fresh court defeat yesterday over his controversial policy of depriving asylum-seekers of food and shelter unless they claim refugee status immediately on arrival in the country.

A High Court judge ruled that the failure to offer them help while they slept rough breached their human rights by subjecting them to inhuman and degrading treatment.

Asylum support groups and human rights lawyers welcomed the ruling and said that it would end the situation under which persons fleeing persecution were deprived of necessities while their applications were processed.

Up to 3,000 asylum-seekers could be affected by the ruling.

The judge, however, said his ruling did not mean it was “inevitable” that anyone who was refused food and accommodation under the new law would be able to claim that their treatment breached Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights.

Mr Justice Maurice Kay, sitting in London, said that those who are “more resilient or resourceful” would be able to find help from friends or charities and would not be able to claim that they were being treated inhumanely.

He ruled that in the cases of three asylum-seekers, the threshold that constituted “degrading treatment” had been passed.

The judge allowed the three asylum applicants from Somalia, Ethiopia and Malaysia respectively the right to challenge the decision to refuse them food and accommodation under rules introduced in January.

He said that when an asylum-seeker was refused support and had to wait “for a protracted but indefinite period of time for the determination of his asylum application it will often happen that, denied access to employment and other benefits, he will soon be reduced to a state of destitution.

“Without accommodation, food or the means to obtain them, he will have little alternative but to beg or resort to crime. Many, like the claimants in this case, will have little choice but to beg and sleep rough.

“In those circumstances and with uncertainty as to the duration of their predicament, the humiliation and diminution of their human dignity . . . will often follow within a short period of time.”

Mr Justice May added: “Our public authorities are obliged to respect their human rights.”

The judge gave Mr Blunkett permission to appeal against the ruling. An earlier legal ruling against the new asylum-support rules infuriated Mr Blunkett and coincided with a redrawing of the rules.

The judgment yesterday made it clear that the rules had been applied too harshly, at least in the three test cases.

Beverley Hughes, the Immigration Minister, expressed concern over the Article 3 ruling and said that the Government was considering an appeal. But she welcomed the judge’s caution that it was not inevitable that claims under Article 3 would succeed.

Jerry Clore and Sue Willman, of the Hammersmith and Fulham Community Law Centre, said in a joint statement: “We hope that this judgment will put an end to this state of affairs and enable persons fleeing persecution to proceed with their applications whilst at least having the minimum – a roof over their head and food to eat.”

Refugee's death

An Iranian tortured in his own country and granted aslyum in Britain hanged himself after he was wrongly told he was being sent home, an inquest in Huddersfield was told yesterday.

Sirous Khajeh, 29, was found dead on Christmas Eve four days after a council worker told him to move out of his flat because he was going back to Iran. She handed him a Home Office letter, sent in error, turning down his asylum application. The inquest was adjourned.

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