20 Jan Manston Inquiry Holds Its First Preliminary Hearing
On 15 January 2026, the Manston Inquiry held its first Preliminary Hearing. The Inquiry, chaired by Sophie Cartwright KC, is examining the unlawful detention and inhumane conditions at Manston Short-Term Holding Facility in Autumn 2022, when overcrowding, neglect, and mistreatment became rampant as a result of the then Home Secretary’s decision not to move people to asylum support accommodation within 24 hours.
DPG is representing 20 clients who were unlawfully detained at Manston in Autumn 2022 and who have been awarded Inquiry Participant (“IP”) status by the Inquiry. Our client group, which includes unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, a family with a young child, victims of trafficking and torture and individuals with longstanding physical and psychiatric health conditions, were unlawfully detained in some cases for over a month, forced to sleep on the floor in freezing cold tents without any warm layers or proper bedding, and in unsanitary conditions with insufficient access to showers or food. Physical violence and racist language were used against detainees, some attempted to self-harm using barbed wire and people were locked in isolation vans allegedly as a form of punishment. There were also outbreaks of various infectious diseases such as scabies and diphtheria and, tragically, a person seeking asylum who was detained at Manston, Hussein Haseeb Ahmed, died after contracting diphtheria on 19 November 2022.
As well as individuals detained at Manston, other IPs include government departments such as the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence, Kent County Council, UK Health Security Agency, HM Inspectorate of Prisons, Mitie Care and Custody and key individuals such as the former Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, and Dan O’Mahoney, a senior civil servant and the previous clandestine Channel threat commander.
At the Preliminary Hearing on 15 January 2026, Counsel to the Inquiry, Clair Dobbin KC, provided a detailed overview of the areas which the Inquiry would be investigating, including the extent to which conditions deteriorated at Manston in August 2022, the circumstances of Mr Ahmed’s death, the actions of staff working on the site including any misconduct and the operational decision-making up to a senior level during the crisis, how this contributed to what happened and the failure to prevent / mitigate it.
Ms Dobbin KC also provided an update on the Inquiry’s work, including a timetable for disclosure, witness statements and public hearings. The Inquiry has already received a significant amount of disclosure – it is understood primarily from key government departments such as the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence – and witness statements from key individuals are in the process of being obtained. Public hearings are expected to begin later this year, most likely in the Autumn.
Jesse Nicholls, instructed by DPG and also by Duncan Lewis, made submissions on behalf of our clients at the hearing, noting: “The mistreatment of our clients at Manston and the deplorable conditions to which they were subject had the effect of dehumanising them. That dehumanisation should not be reinforced and compounded by characterising our clients and others by their immigration status – they were people, human beings, their experiences matter. They matter. They should, we suggest, be at the heart of this inquiry.”
You can read press coverage of the Preliminary Hearing here:
- https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jan/15/manston-asylum-seeker-detention-centre-kent-public-inquiry-conditions
- https://www.kentlive.news/news/kent-news/asylum-seekers-should-heart-inquiry-10758560
DPG is also instructed to represent Care4Calais in respect of the Manston Inquiry. The DPG legal team includes Emily Soothill, Nkiru Okafor, Tabatha Pinto, Yewande Oyekan, Öykü Aktaş and Isabelle Asghar-Williams, instructing Jesse Nicholls and Zoe McCallum of Matrix Chambers.
If you or someone you support was detained at Manston in Autumn 2022 and would like to speak to our legal team, you can contact us at manston@dpglaw.co.uk
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