A boxer who was stranded in Jamaica for ten years as a result of the Windrush scandal has filed a high court lawsuit against the government.
After being wrongfully barred from returning to the UK, Vernon Vanriel claims the Home Office refused to fully compensate him for his loss of benefits.
The 67-year-old spent two years in Jamaica after arriving in London at the age of six in 1962.
He tried to enter the country again in 2008 but was turned away.
In opposition to his claim, the government maintains that he was compensated "appropriately.".
After 13 years of struggling in poverty and homelessness to prove his right to remain in the UK, Mr. Vanriel made his way back in 2018.
In response to the "shameful" injustice and hardship he endured, he later received a personal apology from former home secretary Priti Patel.
He was one of almost 100 Windrush generation members the Home Office recently acknowledged it had wrongfully deported from the UK.
Following his return to the UK in December 2021, Mr. Vanriel successfully sued the Home Office in a separate High Court case challenging the Home Office's decision to deny him British citizenship.
He applied to the Windrush Compensation Scheme in July 2020, and the Home Office determined that he was eligible for an award of just over £103,500 prior to this decision.
The department subsequently offered £29,250 in relation to his homelessness, according to his most recent legal claim, and acknowledged that he would have been in social housing had the UK not denied him entry.
But according to Mr. Vanriel's attorney Chris Buttler KC, he argued that between 2008 and 2018, he was entitled to additional compensation for "loss of access to benefits.".
When his client returned to the UK after living abroad and in a "desperate financial situation," Mr. Buttler claimed that his client was qualified for benefits because he had previously received disability living allowance, income support, and incapacity benefit.
For the government, Edward Brown KC claimed that Mr. Vanriel's legal claim should be rejected and that his human rights had not been violated.
He claimed in written arguments that Mr. Vanriel "had no entitlement" to benefits and as a result "suffered no financial loss" and therefore "no award over loss of benefits" was made.
