Alasdair regularly advises on and appears in challenges involving high net worth individuals, including R (Alnuaimi) v SSHD [2015] EWHC 4295 (Admin) (challenge to refusal of ILR to spouse of points-based system migrant).

Alasdair specialises in asylum and human rights work, in particular in complex issues such as mental health, rights of appeal and exclusion from refugee status.

In 2022 and 2023 he was instructed as junior counsel for one of the claimants (RM (Iran)) in the successful challenges to the Home Office’s plan to remove asylum-seekers to Rwanda (AAA (Syria) and others), appearing at all stages of the proceedings including in the Supreme Court. Subsequently Alasdair was leading counsel in a number of judicial review claims in which applicants threatened with removal to Rwanda sought to argue that their asylum claims should be considered in the UK; the previous government did not proceed with removals to Rwanda and these claims were settled after the 2024 general election.

In 2025 he appeared as junior counsel in the Supreme Court in ZA & N3 v SSHD [2025] UKSC 6, which concerns whether a person who wins their appeal against deprivation of citizenship has retained their citizenship throughout, and therefore whether their child has been British from birth.  He has appeared in numerous other cases concerning deprivation of citizenship, including Shyti v SSHD [2023] EWCA Civ 770, which raised the question of whether an appellate tribunal should determine questions of fraud for itself or is restricted to a review of the Home Office’s decision; and a case in the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, heard in November 2025, in which Alasdair is leading counsel for one of the appellants, which is concerned with the extension of citizenship deprivation processes to those accused of (but never charged with) people-smuggling.

He was also instructed in 2023 in the lead challenge to the refusal of protection to a group of Tamils in Diego Garcia, which led to adverse decisions being withdrawn by the Commissioner of the British Indian Ocean Territory. Alasdair was instructed as sole counsel in a further application, heard in September 2025, for judicial review of the refusal of the then Home Secretary to admit one of the Tamils previously on Diego Garcia to the UK on the basis of allegations of criminality with which he had never been charged.

Alasdair has appeared in numerous Country Guidance cases in the Upper Tribunal.  He was leading counsel for both appellants in the latest judgment on the risks facing Tamil activists from Sri Lanka, KK and RS (Sur place activities: risk) Sri Lanka CG [2021] UKUT 0130 (IAC), and in the Home Office’s subsequent unsuccessful application for permission to appeal.  He also appeared for one of the appellants in the previous Country Guidance case on Sri Lanka, GJ (post-civil war: returnees) Sri Lanka [2013] UKUT 319 (IAC) and in two previous cases on the topic.

He also appeared as junior counsel for three of the appellants in EM (Returnees) Zimbabwe CG [2011] UKUT 98 (IAC), the leading Country Guidance case on Zimbabwe, and for two of the appellants in RS (Zimbabwe – AIDS) Zimbabwe CG [2010] UKUT 363 (IAC), on the lawfulness of removing people with HIV/AIDS to Zimbabwe. He represented the appellant in the leading case on the risk of re-prosecution in China to those convicted of offences in the UK, JC (Double jeopardy: Art 10 CL) China CG [2008] UKAIT 00036.

In 2022 he was also leading counsel in an appeal raising, for what is thought to be the first time in any asylum case, the question of whether a person can be excluded from refugee status, on the grounds of involvement in war crimes, for providing intelligence to the LTTE during its bombing campaign in Colombo before the end of the Sri Lankan civil war.

He has played a major role in challenging the Home Office’s policy of imposing fees for immigration applications.  In 2020 he appeared in R (Dzineku-Liggison) v SSHD [2020] UKUT 00222 (IAC) [2020] All ER (D) 144 (May), in which the Tribunal declared unlawful the Home Office’s policy on charging fees to people applying to remain in the UK on human rights grounds. He previously appeared in the original case on the lawfulness of the fees regime, R (Osman Omar) v SSHD [2012] EWHC 3448 (Admin).  In 2021 he was instructed in a series of challenges which led the Home Office to change its policy on fee waivers for those applying from outside the UK. In 2025 he appeared in R (CPH, by his mother and litigation friend DPH) v SSHD [2025] EWHC 848 (Admin), which established that, when considering whether to grant indefinite leave to remain to a child whose parents are unable to pay the requisite fee, the Home Office is required to consider the best interests of the child in being granted that status.

He appeared in the Supreme Court as junior counsel in Al-Sirri v SSHD [2012] UKSC 54 [2013] 1 AC 745, the leading case on the exclusion from refugee status of people accused of acts contrary to the principles and purposes of the United Nations.  He also appeared as junior counsel for the first appellant in Youssef & N2 v SSHD [2018] EWCA Civ 933 [2018] 3 WLR 1532, relating to exclusion on the grounds of incitement under Article 1F(c) of the Refugee Convention.  

Alasdair was junior counsel for the two lead appellants in EP (Albania) (rule 34 decisions; setting aside) [2021] UKUT 00233 (IAC), in which the Upper Tribunal was asked to set aside its own earlier decisions to dismiss various appeals, on the grounds that its failure to hold hearings during the pandemic had led to unfairness, and in subsequent applications for permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal.

Alasdair acted as junior counsel in MP (Sri Lanka) v SSHD C-353/16 [2018] 1 WLR 5585, a reference by the Supreme Court to the Court of Justice of the European Union, which the Court held that subsidiary protection must be granted where an individual is at serious risk of committing suicide on return, as a result of trauma resulting from past torture by state authorities, and where there is also a real risk of being intentionally deprived of appropriate care for the physical and mental after-effects of the torture. 

Alasdair was junior counsel for the first claimant in the leading case on the Home Office’s legacy programme, R (Geraldo) v SSHD [2013] EWHC 2763 (Admin).

He has also been instructed in numerous appeals before the Court of Appeal and Upper Tribunal relating to  the correct construction of rules and legislation on deportation, including Chege (“is a persistent offender”) [2016] UKUT 00187 (IAC) [2016] ImmAR 833 and SSHD v MM (Zimbabwe) [2017] EWCA Civ 797 [2017] 4 WLR 132 (change of situation affecting asylum applicant; test applicable to deportation of mentally disordered offender).

Other significant cases include AE (Iraq) v SSHD [2021] EWCA Civ 948 (Upper Tribunal not entitled to set aside FTT decision on the basis of disagreement over facts); PR, SS & TC v SSHD [2011] EWCA Civ 988 [2012] 1 WLR 73 [2011] ImmAR 904  (‘second-tier appeals test’ for appeals to Court of Appeal; junior counsel for first applicant); and Abiyat (Rights of appeal) Iran [2011] UKUT 00314 (IAC) [2011] ImmAR 822 (rights of appeal under s.83 NIAA 2002; rights of appeal to UT where FTT declines jurisdiction).

Alasdair has developed a particular interest in the interrelation between mental health and immigration law and in the treatment of mentally disordered people in the immigration system.  His numerous cases in the latter area include Y & Z (Sri Lanka) v SSHD [2009] EWCA Civ 362 [2009] HRLR 22 Times, May 5, 2009, believed to be the first reported case in which applicants have succeeded in contesting removal under Article 3 of the ECHR on grounds of a risk of suicide and R (Y) v SSHD [2013] EWHC 2127 (Admin), a successful challenge on ECHR grounds to the refusal of indefinite leave to remain to an applicant with severe PTSD and depression. In 2025 Alasdair successfully advocated in a judicial review claim seeking to secure indefinite leave to remain for an individual who entirely lacked capacity, on the basis that he would be incapable of applying for further leave to remain and risked becoming an overstayer: the Home Office conceded the case and granted ILR after permission was granted by the Upper Tribunal.  Alasdair has been instructed in a number of other cases relating to people’s entitlement to ILR because of a lack of capacity or serious mental health difficulties.

He was also involved in the first successful challenge to the refusal of the First-tier Tribunal to appoint a litigation friend to an appellant lacking capacity, which resulted in a declaration that the FTT does have the power to do so, and has worked with Migrants Organise to improve the practical arrangements for incapacitous appellants in the Tribunal.  He has also appeared before mental health tribunals.

Alasdair is a leading practitioner in asylum support, including judicial reviews of the Home Office and First-tier Tribunal relating to asylum support decisions, and regularly appears before the First Tier Tribunal (Social Entitlement Chamber).  Notable cases include a challenge to the Home Secretary’s power to provide clothing to those on asylum support (R (AW Kenya) v SSHD [2006] EWHC 3147 (Admin) [2006] All ER (D) 392 (Nov) [2007] ACD 33), as well as a successful challenge to the failure of the Home Office to provide travel expenses to those signing on at immigration reporting centres and numerous successful judicial reviews of adverse decisions of the First-tier Tribunal.

Alasdair is frequently instructed in proceedings in the Administrative Court and Upper Tribunal including in actions against the immigration authorities, challenges to decisions of the Upper Tribunal and First-tier Tribunal and challenges to decisions of the Legal Aid Agency. 

Alasdair acts in challenges to age assessments by local authorities and the Home Office in respect of child refugees and in challenges to trafficking decisions by the competent authority.

Cases include ZA & N3 v SSHD [2025] UKSC 6 (whether citizenship restored between a decision by the Home Office to deprive a person of citizenship and a withdrawal of that decision; junior counsel); a 2021 challenge to the refusal of the DVLA to issue a driving licence to an asylum seeker with current leave to remain, which was settled by the DVLA; SSHD v AS (Somalia) and others [2011] EWCA Civ 1319, Times, January 2, 2012 (appeal rights for those within the ‘legacy’ of previously unresolved asylum claims); R (MM, GY & TY) v SSHD [2015] EWHC 3513 (Admin) (claim for judicial review involving the unlawful refusal of British citizenship to the family members of a person alleged to be an extremist: junior counsel); and R (Teluwo) v SSHD [2009] EWHC 2762 (Admin) [2009] All ER (D) 135 (Nov) (mistakes by Home Office inadvertently misleading tribunal, causing unfairness).