Home Office

3. Mr U complains about the service he received from the Home Office. He complains that his application to the Windrush Compensation Scheme was wrongly rejected. When rejecting his application, he says the Home Office refused to consider evidence he provided, including regarding a police incident in 1997, as well as the many years of difficulty his family had encountered in trying to return to the UK.

4. Mr U explained that because of the Home Office’s failings he had to fight for decades for not only his own rights, but also those of his parents and his brother to join him back in the UK.

5. He told us that the family suffered mentally, physically and financially due to the difficulties of being apart and the fight to be reunited, as well as the subsequent injustices that all four of them suffered over a prolonged period.

6. By bringing the complaint to PHSO, Mr U wants to see the Home Office reconsider its decision on his application for the Windrush Compensation Scheme and acknowledge the validity of his claim. He is seeking financial recompense for the injustices he and his family have suffered, which he would put at level 6 on PHSO’s scale of injustice, the highest level we would consider.

7. Mr U is the son of Indian parents, who immigrated to the UK along with his older brother a couple of years before Mr U himself was born here in 1972.

8. Mr U provided us with a detailed account of his family’s experiences, and we have set out here what he told us. He explained the difficulties his parents encountered, particularly with challenges to his father’s immigration status at work. He said this caused a loss of employment, which had many knock-on effects including accessing housing and fears about the potential loss of his father’s medical licence.

9. His parents separated and reunited sporadically, which he said was largely due to the stressors of the early hostile environment between 1977 to 1981. They had no access to telephones so had to communicate with each other by mail (his mother in the UK, his father in India). During this time his father remained in India, with nobody there to look after his well-being. Eventually Mr U’s mother moved back to India with him and his elder brother to care for his father, aiming to ensure that both sons had a father to grow up with so they could find a way back to England together as a family. Mr U said he then pursued an education in India.

10. Mr U says that for many years his parents tried unsuccessfully to return to the UK, and that due to being born in the UK, he was the sole family member with unfettered access to return. He initially returned to the UK alone, before his brother joined him in 1993 and applied to reclaim his residency status, a process lasting from 1994 to 1997.

11. Mr U told us that during this time he believes there were attempts to have him and his brother institutionalised via both the police and the mental health services. In 1997 Mr U helped his brother return voluntarily to India, which he says they felt was necessary to save his life.

12. Mr U said that on 17 July 1997, police officers attempted to arrest him in the street. He told us that due to the mental health problems he was experiencing and the mounting pressure, he tried to run before being tackled and restrained by the officers, who put their knee on his back and handcuffed him. He was placed in a police van and taken to hospital. He said he initially fled the hospital but was taken back on the same day. Mr U says he showed the police his British passport, but this had no effect and he was treated as a criminal.

13. Mr U said in November 1997 he travelled to India to recover from his ordeal before returning to the UK in early 1999. At this time, he was being administered high dosage antipsychotic medication, suffering from severe depression and anxiety and was required to report to the mental health services monthly for checks to ensure he was not a threat. He had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia; a condition that was later re-diagnosed in 2019 as PTSD and a stress-induced psychosis coupled with autism.

14. From 2002 onwards, Mr U says the Home Office oversaw the failure of his father to return to the UK as a Windrush victim. He says his father was denied his chance to return with no support, no allocation of disability access needs, no entertainment of conversations about how the family could or should brought back together. His father was unwell and sadly died in May 2004.

15. Mr U’s mother was exiled from the UK for almost 35 years before she was finally allowed to return as a visitor in 2016. She later gained settled status in October 2024 with support of the family’s lawyers.

16. Mr U explained he and his family were denied their status for many years, and it was due to this that he applied for compensation from the WCS.

Windrush Compensation Scheme

19. Mr U complains that when rejecting his application for a primary claim to the Windrush Compensation Scheme, the Home Office refused to consider evidence he provided regarding an incident in 1997 and the many years of difficulty his family had encountered in trying to return to the UK.

20. First Review:

21. The Home Office (HO) provided it’s Tier 1 Review Final Decision of Mr U’s claim on 1 October 2024. Mr U had requested a review of the following categories under the Windrush Compensation Scheme:

• Loss of Access to Employment • Homelessness • Impact on Life

22. The HO considered his claim under the three categories, and rejected his claim, offering its justification for each category:

Loss of Access to Employment

23. Mr U had told the HO that he had been denied many jobs (somewhere between 10 and 20) because he was unable to demonstrate his lawful status in the United Kingdom (UK).

24. In its response, the HO referred to the UK government guidance ‘Windrush Compensation Scheme: Full rules’. The document explains the scheme was created to compensate individuals who have suffered loss in connection with being unable to demonstrate their lawful status in the United Kingdom.

25. The HO points out that the scheme rules define “Lawful status” as: (a) a right of abode in the UK within the meaning of the Immigration Act 1971; or 4 (b) settled status, which means, indefinite leave to enter or remain in the UK within the meaning of the Immigration Act 1971.”

26. Mr U was born in the UK prior to the Immigration Act 1971 and has therefore held British Citizenship since birth. British Citizens hold right of abode in the UK and are free of immigration controls. Mr U had provided the HO with evidence of his British passports (also provided to PHSO), showing that he was first issued a British passport on 23 April 1981 and has held a valid British passport since this date.

27. The HO explained that Mr U has always been able to demonstrate his lawful status in the UK with this document and this would cover his right to work. It advised Mr U that based on available evidence, there is nothing to suggest he lost access to employment because of an inability to demonstrate lawful status in the UK because he would always have been able to demonstrate it.

28. The HO declined Mr U’s claim under this category on this basis.

29. Mr U has argued that his difficulty in obtaining work is because potential employers do not view him as a British citizen. However, he has always been able to prove his citizenship, and he explained that no potential employers have stated this as a reason, but rather it is something he perceives to be true.

30. We appreciate that Mr U has encountered great difficulty in securing employment, but further examination has not found anything to suggest he suffered in this regard because of an inability to demonstrate his status.

Homelessness

31. Mr U informed the HO that he became homeless first in 1990 and again in 1999 after returning to the UK from India.

32. As it had already determined, the HO said that Mr U has always held status as a British Citizen from birth and at the time he became homeless, would have been able to demonstrate this with his British passport.

33. The HO therefore found it could not link his homelessness to an inability to demonstrate his lawful status in the UK.

34. The HO declined Mr U’s claim under this category on this basis.

35. Mr U told us his homelessness stemmed from his difficulty finding work. However, this was not because of difficulties proving his status as a British citizen. As with the previous point, there appears to be nothing to suggest a link.

Impact on Life

36. Mr U told the HO he moved to India with his family in 1981 to care for his father. He informed the HO his mother and brother were refused entry back to the UK because they could not demonstrate lawful status. He explained that as he was a minor and was not allowed to travel without a parent or guardian, this meant he was denied entry to the UK because of this, and that this qualifies him for compensation under the scheme.

37. Mr U also informed the HO about an incident where he describes being attacked by police in 1997 and forcibly taken to hospital where he was detained. He informed the HO that he took this incident to be an attack on his status as a British Citizen and described it as a humiliating ordeal that caused deterioration to his mental health.

38. He explained that he was also told he must prove his brother’s status, and he took this as a further attack on his own status.

39. It was following this incident that he returned India to recover. He told the HO that when he returned to the UK his immigration status was challenged by immigration officers at the airport.

40. Mr U told us in detail about three separate occasions where issues occurred while entering the UK via airports. These related to being stopped and questioned at immigration control, but after showing his documents and answering questions about them, he was allowed to proceed on each occasion.

41. The Home Office took the position that these events were a normal part of airport security, and as he was able to demonstrate his status and was able to proceed, there is nothing to indicate an impact which requires redress under the WCS.

42. Mr U provided the HO with a letter from the NHS, explaining he was experiencing heightened paranoia in 1997 leading to him being restrained by police and hospitalised. He was admitted under section 4 of the mental health act 1985 following the arrest and assessed as having a deteriorated mental state. Mr U says the notes show it was recognised that his separation from his family was a major factor in this.

43. HO again found that because he would always have been able to prove his status with his British passports, that it therefore could not support his claim. The HO said there was insufficient evidence to suggest that the incident in 1997 was motivated by an inability to demonstrate his lawful status in the UK.

44. Regarding his inability to travel to the UK alone as a minor in 1990, this decision was again not a result of him being unable to demonstrate his lawful status, and if he had returned to the UK, his status would have been confirmed with his passport.

Second Review

45. Following his rejected application, Mr U requested a Tier 2 Independent review on 18 October 2024. His case was referred to the Independent Adjudicator’s Office on the same day. The Tier 2 Review Decision was provided on 30 April 2025 and did not recommend that the HO review its decision.

46. While it recognised that Mr U had encountered very difficult experiences throughout his life, it upheld the HO’s finding that these did not occur as a direct result of an inability to demonstrate his own lawful status.

47. The Independent Adjudicator discussed the scope of the scheme and explained it is designed to compensate individuals who have suffered loss in connection with being unable to demonstrate their lawful status in the UK. It explained that:

48. “When deciding if something that happened to a claimant meets the criteria for an award, the Home Office should assess if it more likely than not occurred as a direct result of the claimant being unable to demonstrate lawful status. This is known as the balance of probabilities.

49. Fundamentally, the WCS is only designed to compensate individuals, who as a result of progressively tighter immigration legislation, were unable to demonstrate their right to live, work and access services in the UK. The scheme at its core has a reasonably narrow scope and focus to address a specific injustice.

50. As part of a Primary Claim, an award can only be made for impacts a claimant experienced as a direct result of an inability to demonstrate their own lawful status. Under a Primary Claim, impacts experienced because of a close family member’s inability to demonstrate their lawful status, such as your older brother, or your mother cannot be considered. Impacts experienced as a direct result of a close family member’s inability to demonstrate their lawful status, can only be considered under a Close Family member (CFM) claim.

51. From reviewing the information passed to our office, you have previously made CFM claims linked to your older brother and your mother. We are unable to consider the impacts considered under these claims as part of our review of your Primary Claim.”

Decision:

52. Before we decide if we should conduct a detailed investigation of a complaint, we look at whether there are signs the organisation has got something wrong. We do this by comparing what should have happened with what did happen. We have done this and have not found any indications that something has gone wrong.

53. Based upon all the available evidence, it does appear that Mr U would have been able to demonstrate his status as a British Citizen at each of the relevant points.

54. As the IA explained, this is a Primary Claim, and the HO (and subsequently the IA and PHSO) are only able to consider the direct impact Mr U is claiming was caused by his own inability to demonstrate his citizenship, not that of his family members.

55. There appears to be here a misunderstanding here of what the WCS is for. We appreciate that Mr U has often been subjected to very difficult conditions, including but not limited to his difficulty in securing employment and becoming homeless on more than one occasion. While this may have been caused by several factors, there is nothing to suggest that one of those factors was an inability to demonstrate that he was a British Citizen.

56. As suffering loss as a result of difficulties evidencing lawful status in the UK is the key criteria for eligibility under the Windrush Compensation Scheme, we cannot find that there is any indication of maladministration or service failure in the HO’s decision.

57. A key part of Mr U’s complaint related to the claim that when considering his application, the HO did not take into account the encounter he had with the police in 1997. It is Mr U’s belief that the police were acting on the instruction of the HO, and that a deliberate attempt was made on his life. No evidence to support this claim has been provided.

58. Mr U maintains that had he died that day, he would have ceased to be a British Citizen, and that the HO should accept his application on this basis. He told us that when he complained to the HO about the rejection of his application, the HO refused to consider this point.

59. We can see in the Tier 1 Review (1 October 2024) the HO did reference this, noting that he provided them with a letter from the NHS which explained he was experiencing heightened paranoia which led to him being restrained by police and then hospitalised. He also provided the HO with copies of all the British passports he has held since 1981.

60. In the review, the HO wrote: “On the balance of available evidence, this review is unable to determine that you were impacted by an inability to demonstrate your lawful status in the UK. This is because you have provided evidence of your British passports showing that you have always been in possession of these documents which demonstrate your status as a British Citizen. There is insufficient evidence to suggest that the incident in 1997 was motivated by an inability to demonstrate your lawful status in the UK.”

61. As there appears to be no indication that Mr U has been unable to demonstrate his lawful status when required, and we can see that the 1997 incident was discussed in its review response, the HO appears to have carried out its review correctly. With this in mind, we would have no cause to take this point forward for a more detailed investigation.

Summary

62. Having reviewed all the relevant evidence, we have taken the decision that there is nothing to indicate the Home Office have got something wrong in their consideration of Mr U’s claim.

63. We were sorry to learn of the circumstances which led to Mr U’s approach to our office. We realise that this outcome is unlikely to be the one he was hoping for. We also recognise his likely disappointment at this and hope we have clearly explained the reasons for our decision.

1. We have carefully considered Mr U’s complaint about the Home Office (the HO). We were very sorry to hear from Mr U about the many difficulties he has encountered over a prolonged period and recognise the impact that these have had on him.

2. For Mr U’s complaint about his rejected application for the Windrush Compensation Scheme, we have found no indication of failings from the Home Office. The Windrush Compensation Scheme refers specifically to incidents where applicants have been impacted because they were unable to provide evidence of their status as a British citizen. Mr U has a British birth certificate and held a British Passport at the time of the incidents in questions. This was the basis under which the HO rejected the application, and based upon the guidelines of the scheme, it would have been correct to do so.