After a successful challenge, our client’s application under the Domestic Violence and Abuse Disclosure Scheme has now been accepted.
Our client’s application for information regarding her ex-partner’s violent past towards women under the Domestic Violence and Abuse Disclosure Scheme was previously refused by the PSNI on the grounds that she was not a resident in Northern Ireland. The PSNI did not deem our client to be at risk of violence, as she did not live in the same jurisdiction as her ex-partner. Despite our client living outside of Northern Ireland, she still felt at risk of violence from her ex-partner and felt she required this information under the scheme.
Phoenix Law challenged the PSNI’s decision and the PSNI accepted in the first instance that their initial decision was wrong and our client’s application under the scheme has now been accepted for determination. This decision ensures that our client has a fair chance to access crucial information about her ex-partner’s previous violence against women, which is the core purpose of the Domestic Violence and Abuse Disclosure Scheme. This decision also recognises that the risk of violence for victims of Domestic Violence exists even if a violent ex-partner resides in another jurisdiction.
Our client now awaits this information from the PSNI.
Our Hannah Campbell, acting for the client, said “We are glad that the PSNI have now agreed to consider our client’s application under the Domestic Violence and Abuse Disclosure Scheme. This is an important recognition that victims of domestic violence can feel at risk, even when they do not reside in the same jurisdiction as their abuser. We now await the PSNI’s disclosure of this important information under the scheme so that our client is fully aware of the subject’s past”.
Sinead Marmion
Senior Associate
Sinead Marmion
Sinead is a Senior Associate with expertise in dealing with asylum and immigration cases. She has an LLM in Human Rights Law at Queen’s University Belfast and is fluent in French.
Sinead has built up an expertise in immigration and asylum work, with specialism in unaccompanied children’s claims.
Judicial Review
Sinead has specialism in public law challenges in immigration cases through judicial review. She has successfully challenged the Home Office’s decision in respect of a minor asylum-seeker’s age assessment, which is the first of its kind in the jurisdiction. She has a number of judicial review challenges ongoing in respect of the Home Office’s delays in deciding asylum claims within a reasonable time. She is also acting in the first challenge in Northern Ireland in respect of how the rights of asylum seekers interact with the rights enshrined in Article 2 of the Northern Ireland Protocol. Sinead is acting in a judicial review against the PPS in the Divisional Court in respect of a failure to prosecute forced labour and slavery of fishermen in a Northern Irish port, which is also the first case of its kind in Northern Ireland. She is instructed in a number of judicial reviews against the Home Office in their failure to recognise her client as victims of trafficking. She has also acted in appeals from the High Court to the Court of Appeal.
Tribunals
She has represented clients at the First tier Tribunal, Upper Tribunal, and Asylum Support Tribunal. This includes successful challenges to refusals of asylum in LGBT cases, political persecution cases and religious persecution cases. She has also had successes in challenging refusals of granting of residence cards by the Home Office on derivative rights of residence cases through the Zambrano route. Sinead has also represented clients who have faced destitution due to unlawful refusals to grant asylum support through representation at the Asylum Support Tribunal.
Sinead also provides legal support on family and criminal defence cases arising from her immigration work.
Advice
She works closely with Barnardo’s Independent Guardian Service in dealing with cases for unaccompanied minors. Sinead also works with victims of trafficking and modern slavery and works closely with Flourish NI. Sinead is also retained by South Tyrone Empowerment Programme (STEP), which is Northern Ireland’s largest migrant organisation run by veteran civil rights activist, Bernadette McAliskey. Through her work with STEP, Sinead advises on complex cases involving Europeans and their family members applying to the European Settlement Scheme.
Sinead has experience in a wide range of immigration related matters including; entry clearance, family reunion, spouse and fiancé visas, family visas, European Economic Area (EEA), visit visas, and settlement and naturalisation applications.
Sinead obtains instruction from clients who are in detention in Larne House Detention Centre, often facing removal and deportation. This can lead to bail applications, asylum claims, judicial review, urgent injunctions, and unlawful detention claims.
Membership
Sinead has assisted on setting up the first Northern Ireland regional working group for the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association (ILPA).
She is also Chair of the Law Society’s Immigration Practitioners’ Group.
Sinead has recently been appointed as Module Coordinator for the Immigration module on the Public Law & Tribunals course in the Institute of Professional Legal Studies in Queen’s University Belfast.
Sinead is a member of Phoenix Law’s wellbeing committee.
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