Skip to main content
KBS_Icon_questionmark link-ico

 

Windrush Justice Clinic

The Windrush Justice Clinic (WJC) is an award-winning partnership  made up of community organisations, law centres and Universities.  King’s Legal Clinic (KLC) joined the WJC in October 2021 as part of its aim to proactively engage students in equality and racial justice through experiential learning. KLC has a specific partnership with Southwark Law Centre (SLC). The WJC aims to:

  • promote the compensation scheme amongst the community;
  • provide Windrush victims with free legal advice and representation to secure just compensation for their loss and suffering.  
  • conduct research on the accessibility and fairness of the Windrush Compensation Scheme. 

 

 

Historical background

In 2018, the UK government finally accepted that it had wrongly detained, deported and denied legal rights to the Windrush generation and other commonwealth citizens and their children in what is now known as the ‘Windrush Scandal’.  The impact on victims was profound, many victims lost jobs, their homes, were deprived of healthcare, and were threatened with removal from the UK. Some were sent to countries they had not visited since early childhood. Then Prime Minster Theresa May, and successive Home Secretaries, apologised for the scandal and committed to right these wrongs.   Set up in 2019, the Windrush Compensation Scheme aimed to provide fair and accessible compensation to the victims of the scandal.  In the years since the scheme has been subject to extensive scrutiny and repeated calls for reform.

King’s Legal Clinic Activities & Impact

King’s students provide casework support to Van Ferguson, a solicitor at SLC, in the preparation of claims for compensation and reviews to the Windrush Compensation Scheme. The work of the WJC has helped to secure British citizenship and compensation for a number of applicants. Please see our Annual Report for further details. In December 2022 King’s students provided invaluable research support to SLC to assist in the preparation of a strategic legal challenge to an effective blanket refusal by the Legal Aid Agency to grant legal aid to victims of the Windrush scandal. The case was heard in the Royal Courts of Justice on the 20th and 21st February 2024 and the judgement is pending. Find out more about the case

The KLC research report ‘The Windrush Compensation Scheme:  A comparative analysis’ (February 2024) examined three other contemporary compensation schemes relating to harm caused by the State: namely the Lambeth Children’s Home Redress Scheme, the Horizon Shortfall Scheme and the Infected Blood Compensation Scheme. The report evaluates the structure and performance of each compensation scheme to the Windrush Compensation Scheme. The findings indicate a range of structural weaknesses present in the Windrush Compensation Scheme which require urgent reform.  

I have thoroughly enjoyed working with the WJC this year. It has been an amazing experience getting to help make a difference for people who have suffered due to this scandal, and it has further cemented the reason why I chose to study law – to help people who don’t have the means to seek help themselves.

Tilly Soerenson (LLB, 2023)