Members of the Windrush generation who were denied services, wrongfully detained or even deported should be awarded compensation, the Jamaican prime minister and the Labour MP David Lammy have urged.



Calls for financial redress are growing as the scale of the indignities and injustices inflicted on those unable to prove their right to residence – even as the Home Office destroyed its own records – becomes increasingly apparent.

Experts said on Thursday that the sums involved could be up to five figures for each month spent in wrongful detention and considerably more for anyone who is proven to have been deported in error.

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Speaking outside the Commonwealth conference in London, Andrew Holness, Jamaica’s prime minister, said: “My interest is to ensure that the Windrush generation and the children of the Windrush generation get justice. We have to call it out for what it is, but we also have to ensure that those who have been deported get access to a process that gets them back.”

They should get access to “all the benefits that their citizenship will entitle them to”, he said. “If there was an acceptance that a wrong was done, then there should be a process of restoration. I’m certain that the robust civil society and democracy that you have will come up with a process of compensation.”

Lammy, who has been leading demands for an investigation, called on Theresa May to make urgent reparations. “The prime minister must immediately set out how the government will be compensating the Windrush children for the suffering they have endured at the hands of her government that has treated them in such a cruel and inhumane way,” he said.

“This compensation must be applied retrospectively to all of those Windrush children who have spent money on legal fees and legal advice, documentation fees, lost their jobs and been denied access to benefits and public services, including our national health service.

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“The prime minister must also personally apologise to each individual who has been affected as a first step in rebuilding relations with our Commonwealth allies and the Caribbean diaspora in this country.”



Lawyers said that while most victims would be immediately concerned to establish their legal right to remain in the UK, others would begin to explore the possibility of compensation.



Chai Patel, legal officer at the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, said that given the extent of the problem with the Home Office, it would be surprising if no one had been wrongly deported. “There will be others who were unlawfully imprisoned [in immigration detention centres]. Some may have lost their jobs or were denied medical treatment,” he said.

“There will be a lot of litigation. There are systems for people to be refunded if they have suffered an injury for being wrongly detained. The government should make it available so that people don’t have to fight for compensation.”



Jamie Beagent, a solicitor at the law firm Leigh Day who has represented Windrush clients, said compensation claims for families wrongly deported could result in six-figure pay outs. Those detained in immigration centres might be entitled to compensation at the rate of £10,000 a month. “I’m sure there will be cases,” he said. “Some people may have been unable to open a bank account, for example.



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“The so-called hostile environment policy, which has been government policy for a number of years, is the culmination of decades of increasingly draconian immigration law and policy.



“The Home Office must now be clear on just how many people have been wrongly deported and subjected to other unlawful restrictions. We will only then know the scale of the legal challenges the government faces as a result of these policies.”

In a previous case, Beagant secured the release from detention and a financial settlement for the son of Commonwealth immigrants detained under immigration powers for four years because he did not have the paperwork to prove that he was born in the UK.

Mandeep Khroud, an immigration solicitor at the law firm Irwin Mitchell, said: “Many immigrants, especially children, arrived without documentation or travelled on their parents’ passports. This has meant that members of the Windrush generation, their children and their grandchildren have consistently encountered obstacles in proving their right to live and work in the UK.



“There may be compensation claims. If people were were refused treatment by the NHS, they may have had to pay for it themselves.”

• This article was amended on 20 April 2018 to correct a quote.

