24 November 201520 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Ms Dhu’s family calls for end to jail for fines as death in custody inquest begins

source: The Guardian
published: 23 November 2015

The family of Aboriginal woman Ms Dhu, who died while paying off a fine by serving time in police cells, has called for an end to the practice of jailing people for unpaid fines.

Ms Dhu, a 22-year-old Yamatji woman whose full name is not used for cultural reasons, was found unresponsive in a cell at the South Hedland police station on 4 August, 2014. An inquest into her death began in Perth on Monday.

She had been taken into custody four days earlier because she had about $1,000 in unpaid fines, and had twice been taken to hospital and returned to her cell after complaining of severe stomach pains.

12 November 201520 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Louisiana police concede officers fired shots that killed six-year-old boy

source: The Guardian
published: 5 November 2015

State investigators conceded on Thursday that local police officers had fired the shots that killed a small boy in Marksville, Louisiana, and disavowed an earlier explanation for why the officers deployed their guns.

The boy, Jeremy Mardis, died on Tuesday night after police shot into a car driven by his father, Chris Few. On Thursday, Colonel Michael Edmonson, head of the Louisiana state police, denied earlier reports that Few had been reversing his car toward the officers, who then had to defend themselves. “No. I didn’t say that,” he told the Guardian. “That didn’t come from me.”

17 August 201520 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Appeals and removals in the detained-fast track system

source: Right to Remain
published: 11 August 2015

On 2 July, the Immigration Minister James Brokenshire announced the suspension of the detained-fast track system (which handles certain asylum claims, deemed to be quick and easy to resolve). Read the story of the legal cases that led to the suspension in our blog post here.

In Detention Action’s successful legal cases, the High Court and the Court of Appeal ruled that the appeals process of the detained-fast track was unlawful and ‘ultra vires’ (meaning the rules went beyond the authority of those responsible for setting them). This verdict was confirmed again in a judgment issued on 29 August when the Court of Appeal rejected the Home Office’s legal challenge.