vindicated by events. They have not done so. The disclosure of her address to
her husband has come about by other means entirely.
36
PNA must be compensated for the immediate shock of the discovery of the
posting of information about her and for a period, to be counted in a few
months at most, of genuine concern about the possible consequences and for
her expressed feeling that, because of the posting by a body of the Home
Office, to whom she had given information in confidence, she could no longer
trust authorities. I assess the damages in her case at £3,000, an award which is
not out of kilter with awards for less severe psychiatric and psychological
injury.
37
PNB is a Tamil citizen of Sri Lanka. She is married to a husband, with whom
she does not live, and has three children. She arrived in the United Kingdom
with her three children in 2010 and claimed asylum. Her claim was rejected by
the Home Office. She appealed to the First Tier Tribunal, which allowed her
appeal in 2015. The Home Office appealed to the Upper Tribunal, ultimately
unsuccessfully. The appeal was dismissed in 2016. I do not know if she has
now been recognised as a refugee and granted leave to remain, but proceed on
the basis that if she has not yet been she will soon be.
38
She has given a harrowing account of events in Sri Lanka which preceded her
arrival in the United Kingdom. This account must have been accepted as
credible, at least to the low standard by which asylum claims are assessed in
the First Tier Tribunal and Upper Tribunal: is there a realistic possibility that
her core account is true? Mr. Sanders has not challenged it in these
proceedings. I am therefore content to accept that it is true in its essentials.
39
In 2006 she was detained, tortured and repeatedly raped by the Sri Lankan
army. She escaped to France and then Malaysia. Following her return to Sri
Lanka by the Malaysian authorities, she was again detained and raped
repeatedly by members of a government agency and an allied paramilitary
group. She fled again, this time to the United Kingdom. She impressed Dr.
Mala Singh, a consultant psychiatrist, who examined her in connection with
her asylum claim on 28 February 2014, six weeks after she was notified of the
posting by the Home Office, as an honest historian of her experiences and
symptoms. Though she gave evidence through an interpreter, she gave me the
impression that she was doing her best to tell the truth as she remembered it.
40
The posting gave her full name, nationality, age and the area in which she
lived, the fact that she had applied for asylum and her immigration removal
status and that of her family. She said that for about ten days after hearing of it
she was tearful and unable to look after her children properly. She was unable
to take them to school for two days. In the medium term the disclosure
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