Rape and torture victims turned away from collapsed advice service

Rape and torture victims were turned away from the collapsed Immigration Advisory Service last week, a former employee has told the Gazette.

The employee said uniformed guards had blocked clients from entering the Manchester offices of IAS, which went into administration.

The former member of staff, who asked not to be named, said employees first learned that the service was going into administration when the locks were changed at all 14 of its offices on Saturday 9 July, and notices posted on the doors.

She said: ‘Just three hub offices - Manchester, Birmingham and Bradford - were allowed to open on Monday, but we were told not to work on files, refer cases to other lawyers or act for clients pro bono in court, even if a hearing was scheduled for that day.

‘We could only watch through the windows as guards stopped our clients coming in. Some of these clients had been tortured or raped by other men in uniform and were still traumatised. It was all very disturbing.

‘In the end, we told them they would have to remove us from the building if they wanted to stop us giving advice to clients over the telephone. They let us stay.

‘There were rumours about discussions with the Legal Services Commission and the possibility of keeping just the profitable offices open - the north made a small profit last year.

‘But at 4.30pm the administrators told us that there were going to be redundancies and we were divided into two groups and taken to separate rooms.

‘My group was told that the decision had been taken to make us redundant and we were each given a letter dated Friday, which must have been when the decision was made.’

In a statement on its website last week, IAS suggested that legal aid cuts to immigration work had meant that the service was no longer financially viable.

It said IAS had sought a time extension from the LSC to allow it to refund payments that, ‘in common with many other firms’, had been claimed in error. It said this had been partly due to the complexity of funding rules.

IAS trustees said they had been obliged to place the organisation into administration when no agreement could be reached.

An LSC spokesman said: 'The IAS’s decision to go into administration is theirs alone.

'During recent stewardship activities LSC raised concerns around financial management and claims irregularities which prompted IAS trustees to conclude that the organisation was no longer financially viable.

'Our priority now is to work closely with IAS and the administrators to ensure clients of IAS continue to get the help they need, whilst safeguarding public money.’

The LSC has now invited expressions of interest from immigration contract holders wishing to take on some of the IAS’s 8,000-file caseload.

Commenting on IAS’s closure, a Law Society spokesperson said: ‘While parliament debates further cuts in legal aid, [last week’s] news of the collapse of IAS has left thousands of clients stranded. This is the true impact of funding cuts.

‘The government claims that not-for-profit organisations like IAS will fill the gaps in public service provision.

'The fact that this is the second such collapse in the sector in less than a year [after Refugee and Migrant Justice closed in June 2010] shows that these claims are little more than wishful thinking.’