Daily Mail
March 9, 2014
A homeless Somalian refugee who refused a high-rise council flat because she is scared of heights and ‘it was too small’ has won a High Court battle.
Naima Mohamoud took legal action after Birmingham City Council refused to offer her an alternative.
A Midlands county court had backed the local authority but today the Court of Appeal ruled in Ms Mohamoud’s favour after senior judges agreed she was ‘confused about the system’.
The mother-of-one, who speaks little English, claimed she had not realised that the offer of the flat in Cadbury House, Birmingham, was final and had thought that she would have other options.
Appeal judges – who analysed the case at a hearing in London – concluded that she might have been confused and said the council should review her case.
A refugee took a council to the High Court when she turned down their offer of a high rise council house claiming she was scared of heights.
Somalian Naima Mohamoud claims she is separated from her husband and said she was thrown out of friend’s house when she told them she was due to give birth.
She applied for council accommodation and signed a form agreeing that if she refused an offer of a home she would not get another.
Ms Mahamoud was given the chance to move into a tower block, by Birmingham City Council.
But she refused saying ‘it was too small, she was frightened of heights and she did not want to live in a high rise flat,’ case papers revealed.