Prison
Cat IRC
Key Concerns Identified
Positive Findings
Charter Flight
IMB Annual Report 2022 · Published 23 June 2023
The CFMT monitored 12 charter removal and relocation operations in 2022, finding that returnees were generally treated kindly but experienced significant issues. Key concerns included prolonged confinement in vehicles, inconsistent use of force, and inadequate interpreting services, often exacerbating detainee distress. Despite some positive changes in escorting practice, the Board raised recommendations for HOIE and its contractor, particularly regarding vulnerability, financial preparation, and transit times.
Positive Findings
The IMB Charter Flight Monitoring Team welcomed several positive changes in escorting practice, including filming pat-down searches, allowing unescorted walks up plane steps (unless risk assessed), and ensuring privacy in plane toilets. Returnees generally experienced kind and respectful treatment, and advance parties improved property assembly. The paramedics' services were sufficient, and interpreters were more consistently present.
Key Concerns
Regime/Time Out of Cell
Repeated
The practice of confining returnees for hours in parked vehicles is unacceptable.
Safety
The extent of use of force or of restraint on returnees to European destinations on the one hand and on returnees to non-European destinations on the other hand was noticeable. It must be kept under constant review.
Equality/Diversity
The need assessments on which interpreters were booked for returnees to Europe were often unreliable. The assessments were made by IRC staff. It appeared that interpreters may not have been booked if a returnee had some knowledge of English. The information escorts must communicate is new and may seem complicated. The quality of these assessments must be improved. Additionally, the escort contractor must ensure that its staff consistently use Bigword, a telephone interpreting service available to them. The practice of using an English-speaking returnee to interpret for another returnee must cease.
Mental Health
HOIE’s insistence on removing or trying to remove vulnerable people, some perhaps with mental health problems, may accord with policy but it is morally questionable.
Resettlement/Release
Repeated
Custodial staff or Home Office officials in the IRC must better manage expectations around returnees’ applications for a resettlement grant under the facilitated returns scheme. Secondly, HOIE must agree a best practice approach with the Prison Service to resolve the problem of returnees being removed with postal orders, received in prison, which they cannot cash in the destination country.
Regime/Time Out of Cell
Repeated
In each of its last four annual reports, the CFMT recommended that the use of airports far from the southeast be discontinued. The recommendation was rejected each time and the practice continued during the reporting period. The issue is perhaps now complicated by the opening of further detention sites. Positioning is therefore a core consideration. Returnees should be accommodated for removal in IRCs which are as close as possible to the departure port, as a matter of practice, not aspiration.
Board Commentary
Staffing
Mitie Care & Custody Limited continued as the escort contractor, but HOIE faced resource challenges covering all IRC collections. Escorts sometimes worked long hours, exceeding 12 hours on one flight. The IMB team itself maintained five members, recruiting four new volunteers during the year. Some escorting practices were critiqued, such as inconsistencies in filming incidents and ensuring phone access.
Healthcare
Healthcare services, provided by IPRS Aeromed, were generally considered sufficient, with paramedics present at collections and on flights to address medical needs and dispense medication. However, the Board questioned HOIE's policy of removing vulnerable individuals, including those with mental health problems. A serious error of judgment occurred when a paramedic did not travel with a distressed detainee experiencing a panic attack during transit, despite a fitness-to-fly assessment.
Regime & Daily Life
The regime was characterized by significant and unacceptable periods of in-vehicle confinement for returnees, often for several hours while parked at IRCs or airports, or during lengthy journeys to distant airports. This was a recurring concern despite attempts to use advance escorting parties. Night moves for European flights were standard, and there were questionable decisions regarding the transfer of prisoners to IRCs far from their departure airport, adding to transit time.
Recommendations (7)
Home Office: 4
Other: 3
3 repeated
Recommendation 1
The extent of use of force or of restraint on returnees to European destinations on the one hand and on returnees to non-European destinations on the other hand was noticeable. It must be kept under constant review.
Home Office
Safety
Recommendation 2
The room in Derwentside IRC in which the women for the West Africa charter were assembled was not suitable for the numbers involved; the issue was exacerbated by timing (see section 4.2.6). They were individually transferred to the custody of the escorts in a small search room, which achieved privacy but was not ideal. Alternative arrangements must be set up for any future charter collections from that IRC.
Home Office
Regime
Recommendation 3
Repeated
Prev. unaddressed
Returnees’ understandable anxieties about money could and should be ameliorated in advance. Custodial staff or Home Office officials in the IRC must better manage expectations around returnees’ applications for a resettlement grant under the facilitated returns scheme. Secondly, HOIE must agree a best practice approach with the Prison Service to resolve the problem of returnees being removed with postal orders, received in prison, which they cannot cash in the destination country: see sections 4.4.1 and 4.4.2.
Home Office
Resettlement
Recommendation 4
Repeated
Prev. unaddressed
In each of its last four annual reports, the CFMT recommended that the use of airports far from the southeast be discontinued. The recommendation was rejected each time and the practice continued during the reporting period. The issue is perhaps now complicated by the opening of further detention sites. Positioning is therefore a core consideration. Returnees should be accommodated for removal in IRCs which are as close as possible to the departure port, as a matter of practice, not aspiration: see section 4.7.6.
Home Office
Regime
Recommendation 5
Repeated
Prev. unaddressed
The practice of confining returnees for hours in parked vehicles is unacceptable: see section 4.7. The practice should cease.
Other
(other)
Regime
Recommendation 6
The need assessments on which interpreters were booked for returnees to Europe were often unreliable. The assessments were made by IRC staff. It appeared that interpreters may not have been booked if a returnee had some knowledge of English. The information escorts must communicate is new and may seem complicated. The quality of these assessments must be improved. Additionally, the escort contractor must ensure that its staff consistently use Bigword, a telephone interpreting service available to them. The practice of using an English-speaking returnee to interpret for another returnee must cease. It is clear from the official responses to the CFMT’s reports on the November and December operations that this is unacceptable to HOIE and the escort contractor: see section 4.13.
Other
(other)
Equality
Recommendation 7
The person escort record (PER) is an official record and should be a reliable source of evidence. This was not consistently achieved. It must be: see sections 4.16.4 and 4.16.5.
Other
(other)
Other