Darren Middleton

I am a Director in the Immigration department at Duncan Lewis Solicitors, and I supervise a team that specialises in asylum, immigration and public law. I am accredited as a Supervising Senior Caseworker under the Immigration and Asylum Law Accreditation Scheme. I specialise in working with vulnerable individuals and complex cases, including further submissions, and deportation. I have had further submissions accepted outright with a grant of refugee status. I have provided representation where the SSHD has sought to dispute if an offender in prison was a British citizen, and I have also provided representation to an individual that was in France, and we sought to bring back to the United Kingdom under the Dublin Regulation, on the basis of him having previously claimed asylum here. I am very much of the view that a well prepared application can make an important difference in the overall outcome to clients. I am experienced at preparing asylum and immigration appeals for the Tribunal. I have provided representation for nationals of Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Mongolia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sudan, Uganda and Zimbabwe, who have had their appeals successfully allowed by Tribunal. I have successfully provided representation at the appeal stage where the SSHD has sought to deprive an individual of British citizenship on the basis of deception. I am also a participant in the Immigration and Asylum Chamber Committee Working Group at the Tribunal in Birmingham, which meets on a periodic basis. I am experienced in preparing and lodging Judicial Review claims for asylum and immigration related decisions. This includes successfully using the Pre Action Protocol to avoid court litigation whilst obtaining favourable outcomes for clients. I have issued Judicial Reviews including: where there has been a refusal to accept that further submissions amount to a fresh claim; and to obtain asylum support by the SSHD. This includes the reported decision of R(ZV) v SSHD [2020] EWHC 3562 (Admin), where Justice Fordham gave guidance on four 'needs' that are to be taken into account at the interim relief stage, when holding that the SSHD should be providing our client with support. I was also the solicitor for Mostafa Shahi v SSHD[2021] EWCA Civ 1676, in which we obtained permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal to challenge a decision of 'no order' as to costs, when the initial Judicial Review had been successful in obtaining interim relief and then the claim was withdrawn by consent. The Court of Appeal provided guidance to claimants and practitioners as to what they will need to achieve in order to have an arguable claim for costs after obtaining interim relief.