In The Press

The BBC looks at the results of the survey conducted by the Victoria Derbyshire show, which reveals the percentage of appeals allowed in different hearing centres across the country. The disparity between results exposes the inconsistent nature of asylum appeals across the UK, meaning appellants are at risk of receiving an unfair result. Laura Smith, Duncan Lewis Public Law supervisor, discusses her experience of the appeals ‘lottery’ system. She expresses her lack of surprise that the results reveal such inconsistencies across the country. Laura often advises clients to move to an area where the hearing centre has a more favourable percentage of appeals allowed. She explains that in some cases lawyers will lie about their client’s address in order to have their case seen at a hearing centre like Taylor House which allows 47% of appeals. In comparison, Yarl’s Wood allows just 21% of appeals. Laura is quoted: "It's the kind of arbitrary decision-making which I see across the systems all the time…that two cases with merit can have completely different results, based on different judges and different hearing centres."