Pakistani asylum seeker is awarded £100,000 payout after complaining she was 'treated like a criminal' when she overstayed in Britain

An asylum seeker from Pakistan has been awarded almost £100,000 after complaining that she was 'treated like a criminal' when she overstayed in the UK. The court heard Ms Almas's student visa expired five months after she came to the UK in 2004, but she stayed in the country. The court found 'numerous breaches' in the way in which Ms Almas had been detained at the Yarl's Wood centre Ms Almas was detained by Home Office officials in 2018, who informed her that she would be deported But several month later she was 'handcuffed and detained, imprisoned in a room with two men she did not know and told she was going to be flown back to Pakistan', the court was told. The court found 'numerous breaches' in the way in which Ms Almas had been detained at the Yarl's Wood centre, which included a failure to carry out the necessary consideration of alternatives to being held in the centre. The case came to the High Court in Birmingham when the Government appealed the decision of the original judge on the case, Recorder McNeill, who ruled the delay in granting refugee status breached Ms Almas's rights to a family life under the Human Rights Act.