Gwawr Thomas (2008)

 

Teams

Actions against the Police, Animal Welfare & Dangerous Dogs Act, Crime, Housing & Community Care, Immigration, International Human Rights, and Public law

 

Profile

Gwawr's practice extends across a number of inter-related areas, allowing her to take a holistic, multidisciplinary approach to any particular case.  Throughout all areas of her work, she retains a passionate dedication to promoting human rights and defending civil liberties, and is especially committed to publicly funded practice.

 

Education

  • MA (1st Class Hons.) History - University of Cambridge
  • Graduate Diploma in Law - UWE, Bristol
  • Bar Vocational Course - BPP Law School, London
     

Practice

Asylum and Immigration

Gwawr is passionate about safeguarding the rights of refugees and migrants, and is well respected amongst those who instruct her for her clear and pragmatic advice, her lucid presentation of complex or novel legal arguments, and her sensitivity in dealing with vulnerable or anxious clients, including children and those with mental health difficulties. 

Although enjoying a busy practice across all areas of immigration law, she has a particular interest in cases which raise issues of international protection and/or human rights, and is committed to representing victims of torture, unaccompanied asylum seeking children, those who have been trafficked into the United Kingdom and those who have been unlawfully detained.  She has particular experience of challenging adverse credibility findings on behalf of clients persecuted on account of their sexual orientation.

Gwawr has enjoyed particular success in challenging deportation decisions, drawing on her experience of criminal defence and prison law to bring valuable insight into issues surrounding criminal procedure, sentencing and risk assessment. 

In addition, she has been called upon to advise and act in claims for judicial review, including:

  • judicial review of a decision to certify an asylum claim on the basis of sur place activities within the UK, where an image of the Claimant demonstrating outside the Iranian Embassy had been widely circulated online (claim settled following grant of permission);
  • a claim challenging the legality of detention where that frustrated the carrying out of a Parenting Assessment in concurrent family proceedings;
  • a challenge to a decision to certify an asylum claim as 'clearly unfounded' and to remove the Claimant to Italy as a purportedly safe 'third country' under the Dublin II Regulation; 
  • judicial review of the Secretary of State's designation of Bolivia on the 'white list', given the prevalence of violence against women and the lack of state protection afforded to victims (led by Ben Hawkin); 
  • UKBA's refusal to process an EEA application on grounds that photographs submitted with the application did not comply with the published requirements, where the applicant was detained and accordingly denied access to a camera.

Where necessary in order to obtain urgent injunctions, she is able to draft grounds at short notice. 

Gwawr recently acted in a removal case which required her to undertake in-depth research into the acquisition of British Overseas Territories Citizenship by descendants of those forcibly removed from the Chagos Islands.  This has whetted her appetite for nationality law, and she is keen to expand her practice into this area. 

As a volunteer Tribunal representative with the Asylum Support Appeals Project, Gwawr is also able to advise on the repercussions of immigration decisions for asylum support eligibility.

Gwawr regularly accepts instructions on a pro bono basis, from law centres and from Bail for Immigration Detainees, and was until recently Trustee and Director of Action for Refugees in Lewisham (AFRIL), taking a particular interest in the organisation's advice service until its closure in early 2013.

 

Prison Law

Having worked as a paralegal at a leading prison law firm alongside her studies, Gwawr has a longstanding interest in the welfare of prisoners and detainees.

To that end, she regularly represents prisoners at adjudication and Parole Board hearings, and in civil actions against detaining authorities.  She also has a busy judicial review practice in this area, recently accepting instructions in claims concerning issues such as

  • the legality of a prisoner's transfer following an allegation of assault, where there had been insufficient evidence to bring a charge against prison discipline;
  • refusal to recategorise on the basis that a prisoner had not completed a course for which he had been assessed as ineligible;
  • the timely handling of prisoners' complaints;
  • failure to safeguard vulnerable prisoners, such as to to place them at risk of treatment contrary to Articles 3 and 8 ECHR;
  • the legality of a decision to continue to hold an immigration detainee in a Category B prison at the end of his sentence.

 

Public Law & Human Rights

Gwawr is committed to promoting human rights and to holding public authorities to account, through judicial review and civil actions.

As a pupil, Gwawr assisted in the preparation of a number of high profile cases such as the challenge to the sex offender registration scheme as being incompatible with Article 8; the judicial review of the refusal of Legal Aid to enable the wife of one of the perpetrators of the 7/7 bombings to participate in the inquest; and the civil claim against the UK government by the Ay family, Kurdish asylum seekers who were to become the face of a controversy surrounding the government's policy of locking up children in high security detention centres. 

More recently, she has:

  • represented parents before the First Tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability), challenging local authorities' failures to conduct statutory assessments to determine whether a child has special educational needs requiring additional provision;
  • advised a mother facing care proceedings as to whether the local authority's failure to assess her community care needs as a disabled parent gave rise to a public law defence;
  • drafted particulars of claim in a misfeasance in public office and Article 9 action, on behalf of a claimant whose hijab was forcibly removed by immigration authorities;
  • advised about a potential action for damages in relation to an incident in which a vulnerable young woman with severe mental health difficulties was kept in custody overnight when the police officer authorising her detention failed to appreciate that the arrest warrant executed was backed for bail.

 

Housing & Community Care

Gwawr accepts instructions in a full range of housing matters, from possession proceedings, disrepair and unlawful eviction claims, to challenges to homelessness and allocations decisions.  A skilful negotiator, Gwawr is astute to costs considerations (including public funding) and is especially sensitive to the fact that tenants and landlords often need to maintain a tolerable working relationship, notwithstanding ongoing litigation. 

She particularly enjoys acting in cases which raise concurrent issues surrounding social security assessments and local authorities' community care duties.  She has particular experience of challenging decisions to refuse or discontinue welfare support to asylum seekers/failed asylum seekers, having been a regular duty Tribunal representative with the Asylum Support Appeals Project since pupillage.  

In addition, Gwawr offers expertise in litigating claims against local authorities in respect of decisions to refuse section 17 support to migrant children with no recourse to public funds: she recently co-founded Project 17, a charity set up to provide advice and advocacy assistance to families seeking to access statutory support, and to provide specialist training to not-for-profit organisations to enable them to better support migrant families without recourse to public funds. 

 

Criminal Defence

Gwawr's meticulous preparation, tactical foresight and creative advocacy have earned her a busy Crown Court practice.  She particularly enjoys the challenge of those cases which provide an opportunity for argument on contentious points of law and has been instructed to present legal argument before both the Divisional Court and the Court of Appeal. 

She has a particular interest in cases which overlap the criminal and immigration jurisdictions, having been instructed in matters including possessing false identity documents with intent, assisting unlawful immigration, and seeking leave to remain by deception. 

She also has a strong background in representing defendants charged with offences arising from protests and demonstrations, ranging from summary only public order offences, matters of criminal damage and alleged assaults against police officers, to violent disorder.  Her experience in undertaking actions against the police makes her especially well placed to advise as to the scope of police powers, whether as a defence to a criminal charge or in advising as to potential civil remedies following unlawful arrest or excessive use of force.

Examples of recent cases include: 

  • R v UE (Basildon Crown Court):  defendant charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm against a police sergeant.  The defence case was that the allegation had been fabricated by a racist officer.  Defendant unanimously acquitted. 
  • R v KG (Reading Crown Court): defendant given suspended sentence following guilty plea to possessing a bladed article and public order offences.  Povey successfully distinguished despite the fact that the defendant had used a knife to threaten his neighbour in the course of a heated argument in the street.
  • R v LJS (Plymouth Crown Court): confiscation hearing in matter of trafficking women for sexual exploitation and brothel keeping, in which benefit figure was alleged to be in excess of £1.6 million.
  • R v JD (Snaresbrook Crown Court): defendant facing charges of causing GBH with intent and child cruelty.  Application to dismiss successful in respect of both counts following challenge to reliability of dental evidence.
  • R v JT (Reading Crown Court): successfully argued that allowing the prosecution to amend the indictment following a successful submission of no case to answer would amount to an abuse of process.  The submission of no case to answer followed a successful defence application to exclude hearsay evidence after a lengthy voir dire.
  • R v RDS (Hendon Magistrates' Court): secured an acquittal in a trial for a public order matter on the basis that a defendant was entitled to use verbal threats to defend himself from unlawful arrest.
  • R v SH (Woking Magistrates' Court): successfully mounted an abuse of process argument on the basis that the officer in charge of the investigation had unlawfully delegated his duty to assess the evidential value of CCTV footage to the complainant's employer.

 

International Human Rights

In 2012, Gwawr travelled to Colombia as part of the Third International Caravana of Lawyers, joining lawyers and judges from various jurisdictions in a mission to monitor threats to human rights defenders, and to lobby the Colombian authorities to properly investigate these incidents so that those responsible can be brought to justice. 

Prior to coming to the Bar, Gwawr interned at the Legal Aid Department in Lilongwe, Malawi (in conjunction with the Centre for Capital Punishment Studies, based at the University of Westminster), where she worked primarily on securing bail for homicide remandees, many of whom had been awaiting trial for in excess of six years.  She subsequently remained in Malawi to take up the post of Legal Officer at the Centre for Legal Assistance.  In that capacity, she facilitated workshops in prisons to promote access to justice by empowering prisoners to represent themselves as litigants in person.  In addition, she worked on a number of important public interest cases, including

  • test litigation on the obligation to provide antiretrovirals to HIV+ prisoners (in conjunction with International Commission of Jurists);
  • monitoring of reception conditions for Zimbabwean nationals deported to Malawi from the UK;
  • developing a project to challenge the use of child labour on tea and tobacco plantations (in conjunction with UNICEF and the International Labour Organization).

Gwawr has maintained a strong link with Malawi, having recently worked with the Bar Human Rights Committee and the Malawi Human Rights Commission on a judicial challenge to legislation allowing the President to ban radio broadcasts on the grounds of purported public interest.

She also maintains an active interest in international criminal law, building on experience gained within the Prosecution Division of the International Criminal Court.  As a Legal Clerk at the ICC, Gwawr was assigned to the case of The Prosecutor v Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui.  Her tasks included drafting submissions on the scope of victims' participation in the proceedings; conducting comparative research on the admissibility of hearsay evidence in various common law, civil law and international jurisdictions; and disclosure review. 

 

Memberships

 

Languages

Gwawr is a native Welsh speaker; she also speaks French and German.