Campaigners brand Brook House immigration centre inquiry findings ‘damning’

A report which found mistreatment of detainees at an immigration removal centre has been branded a “damning indictment” of the UK detention system by campaign groups as they warned things could get worse under the Government’s Illegal Migration Act.

Describing it as the first public inquiry to examine immigration detention in the UK, the Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group (GDWG) said its findings marked an important moment.

The charity, which supports detained people at Brook House and was a core participant to the inquiry, said the report “highlights that a culture of change must prevail”.

Welcoming the recommendation that the maximum detention period for someone to be held at an immigration removal centre should be 28 days, the group said it had “emphasised the human costs of indefinite detention for many years”.

Sacha Deshmukh (pictured), from Amnesty UK, said: “These findings are a damning indictment of how immigration detention is run in this country.”

He added: “Even more concerning is that since the inquiry was commissioned, the Government has announced plans to drastically increase its use of immigration detention and the few legal protections available to people in immigration detention have been gutted.

“The inquiry echoes many other findings from previous reports on mistreatment and abuse of people detained for immigration purposes, but politicians persist in handing the Home Office ever more powers over people’s lives and liberties in the pursuit of immigration control.”

Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, described the inquiry as “damning” and said it had “not only exposed grave safeguarding failures but shown clearly that the Home Office is not able to provide basic levels of care and humanity for vulnerable people in detention”.

He added: “It should be unthinkable that the Government is planning on detaining more people than ever before under its Illegal Migration Act, including families and children.”

He said that “pushing forward with new legislation will only lead to more overcrowding and abuse in understaffed detention centres, while shutting down the asylum system will see costs spiral even further” and called instead for “order and compassion”.

Mark Hylands, from Deighton Pierce Glynn solicitors which represented GDWG and one of the former detainees, said: “This is the first time immigration detention has been the subject of proper scrutiny. That scrutiny was resisted at every turn.

“Our client and another formerly detained person had to sue the Home Secretary to get this inquiry. Once it started, the Home Office and G4S continued to resist it at every turn. One can now see why: the evidence is breathtaking in its extent and depth.

“Our clients have now been exonerated; the Home Office and G4S have been condemned. Immigration detention needs to be overhauled and, as the chair has said, heavily limited. In contrast, the Government is currently planning a dangerous expansion of its use by way of the Illegal Migration Act 2023.”

The British Medical Association (BMA) said it had been calling for immigration removal centres to be “phased out and replaced with more humane alternatives”.

The doctors’ union said: “Instead of doubling down with plans to expand the use of these centres, it’s now time for the Government to take on board the mountain of evidence and, at the very least, put safeguards in place to ensure that no further incidents of harm and abuse occur within immigration detention facilities.

“The BMA has clear guidance for doctors working in immigration and detention centres – including legal, ethical and practical considerations – and we strongly urge clinicians to utilise this.”

Home Secretary Suella Braverman said the Home Office will “carefully consider the findings” of the inquiry “including the recommendations in relation to the management of the immigration detention estate and the welfare of detained individuals”.

Shadow immigration minister Stephen Kinnock said some of the evidence to the inquiry was “utterly harrowing” and showed the Government had “delivered neither control or compassion”.

He said: “This report epitomises the Conservative Government’s failure over 13 years to deliver the well-managed and functioning immigration system that our country deserves.”

Emma Ginn, director of Medical Justice which works with vulnerable people in immigration detention, said: “Urgent action is needed. The evidence could not be clearer – the harm and horror of detention is being experienced right now in IRCs across the UK.

“Despite knowing the harm it causes, the Government plans a massive expansion of detention – wilfully allowing the inevitable harm to the hundreds of thousands of men, women and children it aims to indefinitely detain.”

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