Hunger strikers launch legal action against Lammy

The six hunger strikers – political prisoners against the Starmer government over its contempt for justice and the right to protest and its disregard for their health and legal rights – have launched legal action against ‘justice’ secretary David Lammy, with a ‘letter before action’ (LBA) for a formal judicial review of the government’s treatment of the ‘Filton 24’ protesters jailed for more than 18 months without trial.

Hunger strikers take legal action

The LBA, sent by hunger strikers’ lawyers Imran Khan and Partners, informs Lammy that the claim is against Lammy directly as justice secretary and is for:

1. The decision of the Secretary of State to refuse to meet, either personally or to appoint an appropriate government and/or prison official to meet on his behalf, with the legal representatives of our clients (hereafter “those instructed”), to discuss the deterioration in our clients’ health during their ongoing hunger strike, and to try to attempt to resolve the situation. Our clients submit that they had a legitimate expectation of such a meeting taking place, in accordance with policies 4.302 and 4.304 of the Prison Safety Policy Framework, and in accordance with the related policy published by the Department of Health, namely the Guidelines for the clinical management of people refusing food in immigration removal centres and prisons.

2. Our clients submit this decision was impliedly given in the Secretary of State’s letter to those instructed of 15 December 2025, and in a public interview conducted by the Minister for Prisons Lord Timpson on 18 December 2025.

The letter also warns Lammy that the matter must be progressed urgently because:

our clients’ health continues to deteriorate, such that the risk of their dying increases every day. They request an urgent meeting with the proposed Defendant to discuss the deterioration of our clients’ health and to discuss attempts to resolve the situation. We request a reply within 24 hours of this letter.

Khan and Partners are acting for:

• Qesser Zuhrah – who went on hunger-strike for 48 days but has just ended her strike.
• Amy “Amu” Gardiner-Gibson – hunger-strike day 51.
• Jon Cink – 43-day hunger strike but now stopped.
• Heba Muraisi – day 50 of hunger strike.
• Teuta Hoxha Peterborough prison – day 44 of hunger strike.
• Kamran Ahmed Peterborough prison – day 43 of hunger strike.
• Lewie Chiaramello and Umer Khalid. Chiaramello is on day 29 of a rolling strike because of health restrictions and Khalid recently ended a 15-day strike at Bristol and Wormwood Scrubs prisons.

The letter details the hunger strikers’ seriously failing health, the risk of death they face, their demands of the government and outlines the Starmer regime’s long and sorry neglect of its legal and moral duties and own official policy statements, along with the ongoing failure of the prison system to meet its legal obligations.

It then outlines the reasons that the government is obliged by its own policies to stop dodging a meeting with the hunger-strikers’ representatives, particularly because government policy on the treatment of hunger-strikers in immigration removal centres and prisons establishes a legitimate expectation that the government will promptly convene:

a review meeting of individuals “most likely to bring about the resolution of the situation”, including “those suggested by the individual” on hunger strike.

Cowards in government

The Prison Safety Policy Framework (‘PSPF’) also states that the hunger-strike is not any form of wrongdoing by the prisoners and puts the onus on the prison system to resolve the reasons why the prisoners are on the strike, as well as to properly manage their health – which has evidently not been done, as treatment has only been allowed by prisons after concerted protest action by the hunger-strikers’ supporters.

Khan and partners say that to resolve the legal action, Lammy and his department must urgently arrange a meeting – something that he has continually dodged, even to the point of fleeing from supporters of the six and trying to deny any knowledge of the hunger strike.

Will the cowardly Lammy finally take his legal obligations seriously, or keep his head in the sand while Israel keeps its arm firmly embedded elsewhere?