UK appoints adjudicator to hear Windrush compensation decisions

Home Office to pay up to £570m to thousands of British Commonwealth-born residents wrongly classifed as illegal immigrants

22nd June 1948:  Newly arrived Jamaican immigrants on board the 'Empire Windrush' at Tilbury.  (Photo by Douglas Miller/Keystone/Getty Images)
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The UK government has announced that it has appointed an adjudicator to review Windrush compensation decisions.

Britain has apologised to thousands of Commonwealth-born residents who were wrongly classified as illegal immigrants.

Known as the Windrush generation, the residents had travelled legally to the UK as children in the 1950s and '60s.

But many were wrongly detained, denied legal advice and threatened with deportation.

In April, British Home Secretary Sajid Javid announced a compensation scheme of up to £570 million for the victims.

On Monday the government announced it had created an adjudicator's office to conduct an independent review on Windrush Compensation Scheme decisions and how complaints about the handling of claims have been managed.

The first payments have been made this month but recipients have not been happy with the amounts.

Glenda Caesar, 58, who went to Britain as a three-month-old child from Dominica in 1961, lost her job as an administrator and was denied unemployment benefits.

Ms Caesar was given £22,264 this month to cover loss of earnings, effect on family life and the distress caused by being wrongly detained on one occasion at Gatwick Airport.

"I feel insulted, as if they are throwing crumbs at me," she told The Guardian. "I wasn't able to work or get benefits for 10 years."

The government adjudicator is Helen Megarry.

The office said that the adjudicator could look at cases only when all stages of the Home Office’s internal compensation review processes were completed.

The claimant must have received the outcome of that review and completed the Home Office’s complaints process.

"If a claimant is not satisfied with a decision we have made on their claim, they can ask the Windrush Compensation Scheme for an internal review," a spokesman said.

It is thought that about 50,000 people of the Windrush generation faced the risk of deportation if they did not formalise their residency status and did not have documents to prove it.

In April, Mr Javid apologised to them for the scandal, which he said “never should have happened”, and said he hoped the compensation scheme would “right the wrongs” to them and their families.

He said there would be no cap on how much compensation people could receive under the scheme, but many categories had set payments.

A 45-page document detailing the scheme stated that those wrongly deported are entitled to £10,000 in compensation.

Those who were wrongfully detained would be offered £500 an hour and those denied access to free health care and education could receive £500 in compensation.

In 1948, when the UK was recovering from the damage caused by the Second World War, it advertised in Commonwealth nations, mainly in the Caribbean, to help rebuild houses.

That year hundreds of people who saw the ad and who fought for Britain in the war went to the UK to help it rebuild.

They were taken over on the Empire Windrush ship, which anchored at Tilbury Docks, Essex.