Ay Family Win Compensation for Lengthy Unlawful Detention

The Ay family are Kurdish asylum seekers who came to the UK to escape persecution in Turkey. The Home Office has agreed to pay them a 6-figure sum of compensation in an out of court settlement following a civil action against the UK government for the ordeal of their time in detention

The family became the centre of a controversy surrounding the government's policy of locking up children in high security immigration detention centres in the United Kingdom.

Amanda Weston of Tooks Chambers represented the Ay family in their civil action, instructed by Marcia Willis Stewart, Birnberg Pierce & Partners.

Read the full story in the Guardian.

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Tooks Chambers

Tooks Chambers is a large, modern and efficient set of barristers united in their commitment to access to justice and representation without fear or favour. Founded on 1st May 1984 at the height of the Miners' Strike, much of Tooks' early work was defending miners wrongly accused of riot and affray. Members' expertise now extends across criminal and civil specialist areas of law but with an emphasis on protecting the individual against the interests of the state.

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