ABUSE and mistreatment remain endemic throughout the UK immigration system, regardless of the general public inquiry into the Brook House scandal, a latest report by the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) UK has found.
After Brook House: Continued abuses in immigration detention, published last week, reveals that little has modified because the mistreatment of detainees at Brook House, at Gatwick Airport, in West Sussex, first got here to light in 2017. The abuse was revealed by a whistle-blower, an worker at Brook House, who worked with the BBC programme Panorama to reveal what was happening.
A public inquiry, which concluded last 12 months (News, 22 September 2023), found evidence of a “toxic” and “dehumanising” culture at Brook House. It identified 19 instances of abuse over a five-month period, which included the inappropriate use of force; forcibly moving detainees while they were naked; using dangerous restraint techniques; homophobic remarks; and humiliating comments made to detainees who had attempted to take their very own lives.
The then Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, acknowledged the failings identified by the general public inquiry. In a written statement within the House of Commons, she assured MPs that “significant improvements to immigration detention” had been made because the documentary was filmed.
The latest report draws on the experiences of men and ladies detained inside the last 12 months at immigration detention centres within the UK. Their evidence was gathered in a workshop and thru interviews. Clear parallels between the experiences of the present detainees and people whose experiences were documented in The Brook House Inquiry Report were identified.
JRS UK’s research concluded that immigration detention within the UK entailed incarceration in prison-like conditions, and that detention felt like prison. The UK was the one country in Europe and not using a closing date on immigration detention, the report noted; and indefinite detention was particularly harmful to detainees.
It also heard of routine deficiencies in health care, including the failure to offer needed medicine and the routine ignoring of medical emergencies, and a culture of disbelief in relation to mental health. Vulnerable people, including survivors of torture and trafficking, were routinely detained and kept in detention — and detention was extremely damaging to mental health, the report found.
Detainees reported that force was used inappropriately and sometimes gratuitously. The researchers also found that there was a staffing culture of abuse and humiliation in detention centres. Nor was there any effective complaints procedure.
In the words of Jonah, a detainee who provided a foreword, the JRS report “reveals a brutal truth” that ought to be spoken about. “The horrendous things that the Brook House Inquiry dropped at light proceed to occur in detention centres across the UK. Detention is a terrible place,” he writes.
The director of JRS UK, Sarah Teather, said that the research proved that the abuse at Brook House was not “some kind of anomaly” that could possibly be brushed under the carpet as a “one-off mistake”. She said: “The experiences of the lads and ladies who contributed to our research shows that the culture and practices dropped at light by the Brook House Inquiry are still happening in detention centres across the UK. Immigration detention has destroyed too many lives, it must not be allowed to proceed. It is beyond time to finish using detention for immigration control.”
JRS UK is renewing its call for an end to detention for the needs of immigration control, and the introduction of a closing date of not more than 28 days for so long as immigration detention continues — something that was also really useful by The Brook House Inquiry Report.
The charity argues that, due to its seriousness, the choice to detain must go before a judge. It is asking for the implementation of the recommendations of The Brook House Inquiry Report, and likewise calls for the repeal of the Illegal Migration Act 2023, and the rejection of the expansion of detention powers inside it.
