Windrush victims challenging the Home Office over inadequate or missing compensation are being denied justice because they can’t get help with legal bills, openDemocracy can reveal.
As well as being ineligible for legal aid under new rules introduced in 2012, Windrush victims are being rejected from the separate safety net scheme of ‘exceptional case’ funding. The Legal Aid Agency says Windrush claimants do not qualify for exceptional case funding because compensation is not a human rights issue.
Van Ferguson of Southwark Law Centre told openDemocracy: “You have, on one hand, an admission of responsibility and liability [by the government] for the way it caused havoc and destroyed a group of people’s lives.
