A senior judge has rebuked Home Office officials for taking a “seriously flawed” decision by relying on a bogus conviction to reject an asylum seeker’s application.

The wheelchair-bound Algerian – known only as G – won a 21-year legal battle last month to remain permanently in the UK, despite having past suspected links to Osama bin Laden.

The High Court judge Mr Justice Collins ruled that the lengthy legal proceedings had had an adverse effect on G’s mental health and that the Home Office’s decision to refuse his application should be quashed. The judge pointed out that G had not been convicted of a terrorist offence.

Mr Justice Collins also lambasted Home Office officials for relying in its decision to deport G on a supposed past conviction for criminal damage, which officials had maintained had resulted in a 12-month prison sentence.

“Unfortunately,” Mr Justice Collins said in his ruling, the Home Office “had made a serious error.” The judge went on to clarify that G “had not been convicted of any offence in this country and so the assertion that he had was untrue”.

Mr Justice Collins said that Home Office lawyers had offered no explanation for the false allegation that G had been convicted, saying “clearly this decision was seriously flawed”.

The ruling pointed out that the Home Office only withdrew its contention that G’s application should fail after his solicitors drew their attention to the error.

“Serious errors such as that are unforgivable,” Mr Justice Collins told the Home Office legal team, “and I can only hope that steps have been taken to ensure that extra care is taken to avoid them in the future.”

A Home Office spokesman said that officials were considering the judgment.

A group of MPs has called on the government to legislate to ensure that at least 45 per cent of parliamentary candidates fielded by political parties are women.

The women and equalities committee in the House of Commons said that the lack of female MPs relative to the numbers of men represented a “serious democratic deficit”. It called on ministers to set the target for representatives in parliament and in local government by 2030.

The committee said that the legislation should include fines or other sanctions for parties that failed to comply. “While the goal is equality,” the committee report said, “we recognise the difficulty inherent in setting this statutory minimum at 50 per cent; such a precise target would be difficult to meet while also ensuring that men did not become under-represented. A minimum of 45% would therefore be acceptable.”

The committee urged ministers to legislate during the present parliament so that the requirements could be brought into force if the proportion of female MPs did not increase significantly at the next general election in 2020.

At present 30 per cent of MPs are women with the UK ranking 48th globally for female representation in the lower or single legislative chamber, having fallen back from 25th place in 1999.

Ministers are dragging their feet over a law that would help police tackle paedophiles, child protection campaigners claimed today.

A new offence would make it illegal for adults to send a sexual communication to someone under 16 years of age, under legislation that was enacted in England and Wales in 2015.

But the NSPCC, the charity that campaigns against cruelty to children, has called the government to task for not implementing the relevant section of the Serious Crime Act 2015, despite claims that a similar law has been successfully used to catch abusers in Scotland.

According to campaigners, in the past six years the Scottish authorities have recorded 1,537 offences under similar legislation. And since February last year legislation has also been in place in Northern Ireland.

The charity said that more than 50,000 people had joined its campaign calling on ministers to implement the legislation in England and Wales. It said that figures from the organisation Childline showed that the number of counselling sessions for children worried about online sexual abuse rose last year by 24 per cent to 3,716.

Peter Wanless, chief executive of the NSPCC, has written to the justice secretary, Liz Truss, asking for clarification of the government’s intentions regarding the law. “In too many cases the police have been left powerless to take action to protect children who are increasingly being targeted by abusers online,” Wanless said.

“We cannot understand why the government is dragging its feet. It is an unacceptable and baffling delay in equipping police in England and Wales in the battle against criminals who are intent on targeting children.”

Compulsory insurance should be extended to a category of vehicles beyond simply cars and lorries, insurance company lawyers argue after a European court ruling.

Agricultural equipment such as tractors specifically should be brought within the regime, the Forum of Insurance Lawyers has told the government, which is consulting on proposed amendments to the EU’s motor directive.

The lawyers warn that an amendment is necessary in the light of the Court of Justice’s recent ruling in the Slovenian case of Damijan Vnuk v Zavarovalnica Triglav. In that action, the court ruled that a tractor involved in an accident should have been insured, even though the vehicle was being used on private land and only for agricultural purposes.

That judgment has triggered concern that a range of other vehicles could fall within Europe’s compulsory insurance rules, including golf buggies, quad bikes, bumper cars and motorised ridden toys.

“It is clear that allowing EU law to follow the Vnuk judgment would have a very significant impact on motor insurance across Europe,” said Peter Allchorne, head of the Forum of Insurance Lawyers’ motor team and a partner at the law firm DAC Beachcroft.

The Department for Transport is considering an amendment to the EU directive that would bring more categories of vehicle within the compulsory insurance regime but with insurance cover only being required where the vehicle is being used in traffic.

Allchorne warned that the amendment was “not a panacea for the issues raised by Vnuk, which would still require some difficult issues to be addressed”.

Freshfields offers voluntary redundancy to 180 London secretaries – Legal Week

Departures continue from tight-lipped KWM – Law Gazette

Chambers boost pay as pupillage applications open – Legal Cheek