At today's oral hearing another judge turned down my request for permission for a judicial review of the planning process at Hassockfield, so this case has reached the end of the road.

Thank you all for the support you have given, and I hope you'll stay tuned in to the campaign against this detention centre at Hassockfield, now re-named Derwentside IRC.

You may be interested in a different legal challenge over this site being mounted by Women for Refugee Women. If so take a look at https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/stop-the-detention-of-women/ 

Or if you just want to keep an eye on the continuing opposition to this women's immigration detention centre, bookmark https://notohassockfield.org.uk/ 

But from me, thank you again for your support, and good-bye.

Owen Temple

On Thursday the legal team and I will ask a judge to reconsider our request for permission for this case to go forward to Judicial Review.

We will make the best case we can as to why this case should be fully heard in court, and will let you know as soon as possible whether we have been successful.

Please bear us in mind on Thursday, and more importantly those vulnerable women who are being detained there, far from home and their local sources of support.

And thank you once again to all you generous people who have backed us in this attempt and showed how much you care about the way we in Britain treat the stranger in our midst. We will never give up the struggle for a fairer and more humane system of dealing with people who seek sanctuary in our country.

This is a brief update to keep all you generous people who have backed my and my legal team’s attempt to achieve a judicial review of planning decisions made by Durham County Council in respect of the development of Hassockfield/Derwentside IRC.

Unfortunately the court has refused permission for the review.

We are now exercising our right to renew our application for permission by means of an oral hearing. When we have any further news we will update you, but in the meantime thank you for your support to date.

On New Year's Eve we got the bad news that the first women detainees had been transferred from Yarl's Wood to Hassockfield near Consett - or Derwentside IRC as the government insist on calling it in an attempt to cover up its ugly past.

Please don't think that this makes any difference to this case or the strenuous efforts being made by many people to fight this cause in different ways. Unfortunately my legal team and I  have not heard from the court yet whether we have permission to proceed with the judicial review we seek and as soon as we know where we stand with this we will let you know.

In the meantime, local people will continue to demonstrate their objection to this detention centre, and faith groups will continue their vigils at the site so that the women who are detained do not think they are forgotten however hard the authorities try to hide them away.

The inspirational Agnes Tanoh from Women for Refugee Women spoke to protesters at Hassockfield this weekend, inspiring us all to keep up the struggle to prevent Hassockfield from opening as an immigration detention centre for women.

She urged us on, drawing on her own grim history of detention at Yarl’s Wood during her eight year struggle to be allowed the right to live in safety and freedom. Read her compelling words here:

Agnes Tanoh’s speech: Hassockfield protest, 16^th October 2021

We are here, Gemma, Venus and I, from Women for Refugee Women, to join you in your coalition of local people.

You have been campaigning weekly and monthly for a while. You have been protesting against the opening of Hassockfield detention and removal centre in County Durham.

Women for Refugee Women is proud of you and says a big thank you to you. Actions speak louder than words and this is what you have been doing by protesting here before, and today.

You have worked so hard to bring people and organisations together.

You have worked so hard to inspire resilience from your members but also from us.

Together, we want to continue to fight until we succeed since we are fighting for a good cause.

We are fighting for the dignity of human beings.

We are fighting for women in distress.

We are fighting against detention which is an inhumane practice.

We don’t want to see this beautiful county be responsible for the harm and trauma of vulnerable women.

We are fighting for excluded, persecuted, abused women seeking sanctuary.

We have to act and speak out to stop Hassockfield from opening.

Women for Refugee Women is here for two main reasons. Firstly, we – and you – don’t want women to be locked up because they are seeking safety and protection.

Priti Patel stop locking up women.

Home Office don’t break your promises.

Home Office, you said no more no more detention centres. So why are you opening Hassockfield detention centre?

Dear friends, I experienced detention in Yarl’s Wood detention centre for more than three months.

Detention centres like Hassockfield are prisons. But they are worse in their conditions because you are locked up without trial, which is opposite to the basic principle of British Values.

Detention is a prison where you don’t know the length of your sentence.

We have to say something now, cry out the trauma now, cry out the distress and abuse and shout loud: Stop locking up traumatised women!

The second reason for our presence here today is that Hassockfield is also a removal centre. Do we want to be accomplices to deporting women at risk of persecution back to the country from which they fled?

Priti Patel wants to remove people in distress to their countries. Priti Patel wants to send them back to the fire they escaped from, from the wars they escaped. Is this how human beings should be treated?

Do you know that earlier this year, in Birmingham, a teenage Afghan, a 19-year-old boy, who feared the UK would deport him, killed himself?

Let us say no to removal.

I am going to end here. However, I want to ask to Priti Patel, does she know how many UK citizens leave this peaceful country to live in other countries?

Numerous UK citizens live in other countries only because they want to and love it – so why does Priti Patel want to stop citizens of other countries coming to the UK when they have to?

Women coming here are fleeing war, persecution – not safe places.

Instead of locking up those vulnerable women with the intention of deporting them back to face more violence, we should be treating them with compassion and dignity.

Detention and deportation tear families apart; they traumatise children.

Dear friends what we would choose?

Love or hate.

Dignity or abuse.

Kindness or nastiness.

Equality or inequality.

Welcome or rejection.

I am sure you choose love, compassion, inclusion, welcome.

So let us shout together: No to Hassockfield!

No to Hassockfield in County Durham.

No to Hassockfield.

Thank you to all the wonderful people who have already supported my appeal for funds (and those who will support it over the coming weeks). I hoped you'd want to know where my legal team and I are up to.

We wrote to Durham County Council, as you should before pursuing a judicial review, setting out the mistakes we believe they have made in dealing with planning issues at Hassockfield. Obviously, we hoped the council would accept our argument and consent to the quashing of the planning permission they had granted in August. We also asked them to agree to consider enforcement action against what would then be unlawful development.

The council declined.

That's why we are pursuing legal action, and we have today set that in motion by issuing a Judicial Review Claim Form in the Administrative Court.

As I write it all sounds a bit dry, though it actually feels really nerve-racking. That’s because behind the legal language and procedure lie big issues of principle, and the still bigger issue of whether vulnerable and frightened women are to be separated from friends and family, sent far from home, and locked up in this forbidding penal institution on the edge of the Pennines.

That’s why I want you to know that you have already lifted the spirits of all those working for the vulnerable women threatened by this development (and lifted mine too). Thank you so much, and please do pass the message on to those who you believe share your values. Together we can make a stand for Justice and Humanity.