The UK’s Brook House Inquiry published a report on Tuesday detailing its investigation into the mistreatment of people detained at Brook House Immigration Removal Centre in the UK. The inquiry, chaired by Kate Eves, was set up to investigate incidents at the centre that took place between 1 April 2017 and 21 August 2017. The report reveals 19 incidents over five months that amounted to ill-treatment in breach of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, including the forced movement of naked detainees and the use of unnecessary pain.
The investigation was originally launched following a 2017 BBC documentary, Undercover: Britain’s Immigration Secrets’, covertly filmed at the immigration centre and revealed abuse of detainees by staff. The report details several examples, including an incident in which “pressure was applied to a detained man’s neck while he was in extreme distress” and “dangerous restraint techniques”, as well as the use of inappropriate and excessive force. The indefinite nature of immigration detention has a “detrimental effect on wellbeing” because there is no maximum period for which a person can be detained, the report says. The inquiry also found a “failure to follow safeguarding rules and procedures to protect vulnerable people”.
In the report, Eves makes 33 recommendations which she says “must be implemented to ensure that other detained people do not suffer in the same way as those at Brook House”. She called for a limit on the length of time people can be detained, recommending that people should only be detained for a maximum of 28 days. Eves also noted that practical steps need to be taken to improve “Home Office oversight of contracts, the environment, people’s safety and their experience of detention”. In a statement accompanying the report, Eves highlighted that there had been a notable failure to act on previous recommendations, as evidenced by the actions observed during the investigation and detailed in the report. She concluded that “the Home Office should publish its responses” to her recommendations within six months.
The treatment of migrants in the UK has come under scrutiny in recent months following the passing of the Illegal Immigration Act, which bans anyone who enters the country without documentation from claiming asylum, and the controversy surrounding the housing of migrants on the Bibby Stockholm barge, where legionella bacteria was discovered in the water supply last month.
