A man whose human rights were breached by the island’s top civil servant has been awarded costs of £457 in a ruling by First Deemster Andrew Corlett.

Deemster Corlett had previously ruled that Will Greenhow, then the chief secretary, had breached Douglas Bayley’s human rights when he was denied access to his own home during the pandemic when he became stuck in Egypt.

Mr Bayley, who hadn’t sought financial compensation in the previous case, asked the court to award him costs accumulated during his claim against Mr Greenhow and former chief minister Howard Quayle. The case against Mr Quayle was dismissed.

In his statement to the court, Mr Bayley said he had been unable to get legal representation for the case and criticised the Isle of Man Law Society.

He said: ‘The Isle of Man Law Society is a closed shop with generally incompetent management who seemed at best unable to offer any advice as to my options – other than there were none.’

Mr Bayley said his legal costs were about £1,300. However, Deemster Corlett said Mr Bayley had ‘made no real effort to research and substantiate his claim for reimbursement of court fees’.

He added: ‘It is not for this court to do work for an intelligent litigant in person which he or she could reasonably have done by dint of some basic research.’

However, Deemster Corlett said he was willing to entertain a claim to reimburse court fees which were ‘self-evidently within the knowledge of the court’.

As such he ordered that Mr Greenhow must pay Mr Bayley £457 within the next 28 days.

In this first judgment, Deemster Corlett said that when the government refused Mr Bayley to return home had left him ‘deprived of the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions’.

However, he said the regulations themselves, which banned non-residents from entering the island without an exemption certificate, were not unlawful.

Mr Greenhow retired from his job in May.