A law firm behind a potential £500,000 payout to migrants who had mobile phones seized when making it to the UK has a history of cases involving costs to taxpayers.
Deighton Pierce Glynn’s co-founders include Polly Glynn, who was dubbed ‘millionaire champion of the travellers’ after a leading role in a ten-year, £20million battle over the Dale Farm campsite in Essex.
The company last week celebrated representing Amnesty International ahead of a ruling by London‘s High Court that the Government’s ban of Palestine Action under anti-terrorism legislation was unlawful.
Now it features in revelations that asylum seekers who had phones and data confiscated by the Home Office when arriving in Britain are receiving an average £6,500 apiece.
More than 70 asylum seekers crossing the Channel on small boats are said to have benefited from the compensation offers so far.
Rulings were made by London‘s High Court that confiscating their mobile phones and data went against European human rights laws.
Now there are suggestions that as many as 1,300 migrants could take similar legal action to claim damages – pushing the taxpayer-funded bill into millions of pounds.
The current official tally stands at £210,800, granted to 32 asylum seekers – equivalent to £6,587.50 each.
Deighton Pierce Glynn’s co-founders include Polly Glynn (pictured at the Wellbeing of Women Gala in Grosvenor Square, London, in February 2018
And another 41 cases are being considered, according to government officials – potentially pushing the overall bill to £480,887, if the same sums are awarded.
The migrants who brought the original challenge were represented by law firms Gold Jennings and Deighton Pierce Glynn.
Speaking after the case, Daniel Carey, of Deighton Pierce Glynn, said: ‘Nearly 2,000 phones were taken from migrants in an indiscriminate blanket policy that the High Court has now found to be unlawful on multiple fronts.
‘All of this had real impacts on very vulnerable people, who lost touch with their families and couldn’t get their asylum documentation, while the phones languished on a shelf for many months, many which now cannot be returned.’
The Dale Farm case with which the firm was involved previously cost the taxpayer £20million, as it represented squatting travellers in a ten-year legal battle.
Ms Glynn, who has previously protested about legal aid cuts, was dubbed the ‘millionaire champion of travellers’ for her role in a high-profile legal challenge fighting the eviction of 86 families from Dale Farm in Crays Hill, Essex.
The eviction process took ten years and is believed to have cost taxpayers more than £20million. The travellers were also believed to have been funded by legal aid.
Once speaking at an Oxford University law faculty event, Ms Glynn reportedly discussed how to combat ‘the deleterious effect of the legal aid austerity measures’.
Migrants from nations including Vietnam, Iran and Eritrea disembark a RNLI vessel after being rescued in the English Channel, in Dungeness, Kent, in August 2021
DPG also hit the headlines after being exposed for threatening to sue hospitals that refused to provide free treatment for migrants, sending allegedly ‘aggressive’ letters – although the company rejected the label given by critics of ‘health tourists’.
DPG later took on a case on behalf of asylum seekers challenging the Government over ‘squalid and unsafe’ living conditions at Napier Barracks in Kent where they were housed.
A High Court judge ruled in June 2021 against the Home Office, calling the conditions inside the site unlawful.
Now DPG is acting in a public inquiry about another Kent camp, Manston, with a first preliminary hearing was held last month – with the law firm representing 20 clients they say were unlawfully detained at the centre in autumn 2022.
Among the allegations are physical abuse, sexual assault, guards thieving property, as well as dirty and cold conditions, scabies and outbreaks of diphtheria.
There are also claims of forcible separation of families as well as denial of medical assistance.
The Home Office said last February would launch a public inquiry into what had transpired at the base when it was three times over official capacity, housing about 4,000 people between June and November 2022.
It has been alleged the department unlawfully detained thousands of asylum seekers at the facility beyond the 24 hours outlined in its own regulations.
The Dale Farm site near Basildon in Essex, occupied by travellers without planning permission from 2001 onwards, was subject of a 10-year, £20million court battle
Migrants who are detained for over this period can receive standard compensation of around £500 per 24 hours, as well as aggravated or exemplary damages – with suggestions that potential compensation could run into millions of pounds.
DPG is also representing the Crowborough Shield group concerned about the housing of asylum seekers in a military camp in East Sussex.
The community-led campaign group, has lodged an application for a full judicial review of the decision to place more than 500 asylum seekers at the camp.
The Government says the camp will help in its pledge to stop using hotels to house asylum seekers.
But Crowborough Shield says there has been a lack of transparency surrounding the decision and have raised serious concerns about staffing at the camp, police provision and the impact on health services.
Ms Glynn has said the case would test the limits of government power over community’s right to be heard over decisions.
The London and Bristol-based ‘civil rights solicitors’ are known for taking on high-profile cases where claimants are reliant on legal aid.
The company’s website states: ‘We use the law to empower our clients to challenge abuses, failures, and other unlawful conduct by the government and those with power.
Almost 200 asylum seekers have launched legal claims against the Home Office for unlawful detention and mistreatment at Manston migrant holding centre (pictured) in Dover
‘We are committed to becoming an anti-racist firm. We work together to make the firm sustainable financially and for each other.
‘We put clients first. We are collaborative. We aspire to excellence in all we do.’
DPG said of last week’s High Court ruling on Palestine Action: ‘Deighton Pierce Glynn acted for who along with Liberty were given permission to intervene in the case and opposed the proscription decision on the basis that it was a disproportionate interference with freedoms of expression and assembly.
‘They highlighted the serious impact on the long history of direct action protest in the UK, with reference to the wide range of potential criminal offences that result from proscription, such as the criminalisation of meetings that further the purpose of the proscribed organisation, even where that purpose is direct action protest in relation to Palestine.’
The Home Office is appealing against the High Court’s decision.
DPG is the result of a merger between two law firms in May 2012, Pierce Glynn and Deighton Guedella.
FOI requests showed the new firm made £2.44million from legal aid in the following three years.
Ms Glynn, who set up Pierce Glynn in 1997, says on the merged company’s website: ‘After so many years, I remain hugely motivated and inspired by our clients.
‘It is a privilege to be able to work in this field, with amazing colleagues inside and outside the firm.’
Ms Glynn’s fellow founding partner was Stephen Pierce, also a solicitor and tribunal judge as well as costs assessor for the Legal Services Commission.
Deighton Pierce Glynn has been contacted for comment.
Reform MP Robert Jenrick, who defected to the party last month from the Conservatives, said of the newly revealed figures on the cost of confiscating migrants’ mobile phones: ‘It is a farce and total waste of taxpayers’ money.
‘This is further proof, as if it were needed, of how rulings made by European judges are working against the British people.’
The criticism comes after a 2022 ruling by High Court judges Lord Justice Edis and Mr Justice Lane that the mobile phone confiscation policy was illegal.
They found it breached the European Convention on Human Rights, with reports at the time suggesting 1,323 migrants could apply for damages.
Both Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch and her Reform UK counterpart Nigel Farage have committed to withdrawing Britain from the ECHR.
A Freedom of Information response revealed the Home Office has already spent £735,000 contesting the case.
It confirmed that of the £210,800 paid out, £163,900 accounted for ‘pure compensation costs’, while a further £46,900 was paid under Calderbank offers – confidential ‘without prejudice’ agreements – covering both compensation and legal costs without distinction.
The legal battle stems from a judicial review launched in November 2020 by three asylum seekers, identified only as HM, MA and KH.
The High Court heard that nearly 2,000 phones were taken between April and November 2020 under what was described as a blanket policy.
Until July 2020, all seized devices and SIM cards were subjected to full data downloads.
After that date, downloads were limited to cases where a ‘person of interest’ had been identified on a boat.
In January 2022, the case came before the High Court, with judgment handed down two months later.
Lord Justice Edis said then-Home Secretary Priti Patel, as part of the then-Conservative government, accepted that the ‘blanket seizure policy was not in accordance with the law’.
The judges found that confiscating phones interfered with migrants’ rights to family and private life under the ECHR and that phones and PINs were taken ‘without any lawful authority’.
In their written order in October 2022, the judges ruled: ‘The Mobile Phone Policy was unlawful because it was unpublished.’
They added: ‘Searches and/or seizures were unlawful because they operated in a blanket way.’
The court also identified a ‘failure of governance’ surrounding the unpublished policy.
Evidence presented during proceedings included claims that asylum seekers were ‘bullied’ into handing over passcodes, allowing personal data to be extracted and added to an intelligence system known as Project Sunshine.
Following the ruling, the court ordered the Home Office, now led by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, to ‘use all reasonable endeavours’ to contact migrants whose phones had been seized, advising them: ‘If you have not taken legal advice on your position, you are strongly advised to do so now.’
The first wave of compensation payments has sparked outrage among critics.
Alp Mehmet, chairman of campaign group Migrationwatch UK, has now said: ‘This beggars belief. The taxpayer should not be made to hand over huge sums to people who have made their way here illegally to break into the country.
‘If granted permission, they should instead be required to repay the huge costs of maintaining them while their applications are processed.’
William Yarwood, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘It is utterly perverse that people who broke into the country are now being handed these cheques courtesy of British taxpayers.
‘Instead of deterring illegal entry, the system has ended up financially rewarding it.
‘Ministers must slam the door on further payouts and ensure the law is enforced robustly.
‘The priority should be stopping the boats and detaining and deporting all illegal migrants.’
The Home Office had defended the policy as a necessary tool to gather intelligence on smuggling gangs organising Channel crossings.
In response to the controversy, ministers have since passed legislation making it lawful to seize migrants’ phones and electronic devices.
Mobile phone seizures resumed last month at Manston processing centre in Kent as part of a renewed crackdown on people-smuggling networks.
More than 70 small boat migrants have landed a taxpayer-funded windfall after the High Court ruled the Home Office acted unlawfully by seizing their mobile phones on arrival in Britain
Announcing the measures, Border Security and Asylum Minister Alex Norris said: ‘We are implementing robust new laws with powerful offences to intercept, disrupt and dismantle vile gangs and cut off their supply chains.’
A Home Office spokesperson said today: ‘This compensation is to be paid as a result of the previous government’s policy, which now no longer exists.
‘We have introduced tougher legislation in the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act which allows asylum seekers’ mobile phones to be legally seized when they arrive in the UK.
‘These game-changing criminal offences will mean organised criminals fuelling illegal migration can be intercepted faster than ever before.’
Meanwhile, it emerged earlier this month that more migrants have arrived during Sir Keir’s time in Downing Street than under any other prime minister, overtaking the previous high of 65,811 under Boris Johnson.
The record under Sir Keir has been reached in just over 19 months, compared with three years under Mr Johnson.
The Channel crisis has now entered its ninth year and the total number of migrants to have reached Britain now stands at more than 193,000.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood admitted to MPs that the ‘one in, one out’ deal had ‘obviously not dented the numbers yet’.
A British Border Force vessel picks up an inflatable dinghy carrying migrants in front of the white cliffs of Dover in the English Channel in May 2024
So far 367 migrants have been brought into the UK under the reciprocal terms of the treaty and only 305 have been removed, she said.
The scheme has ‘probably not’ affected migrants’ decisions to cross the Channel, she told the Commons’ home affairs select committee, and they ‘may well be banking on it not working or not being able to be scaled up’.
She also declined to give a commitment that Labour’s asylum reforms will start to see a fall in the number of small boat arrivals by next year.
There were 41,472 small boat crossings last year compared with 36,816 in 2024.
Asked whether she could confidently say numbers would go down by this time next year, Ms Mahmood said Labour’s reforms would ‘take some time to come into effect’, adding: ‘I can’t guarantee I’m going to be in that position.’
Labour has announced it will reform modern slavery laws, the asylum appeal system and restrict the way migrants can use the ECHR’s ‘right to private and family life’.