Prison
Cat Charter Flight Monitoring Team
Key Concerns Identified
Positive Findings
Charter Flight Monitoring Team (CFMT)
IMB Annual Report 2023 · Published 25 July 2024
The Independent Monitoring Board's Charter Flight Monitoring Team observed nine charter operations to Albania, primarily involving individuals transferred from prisons to immigration detention before removal. The report highlights significant concerns regarding the humane treatment of returnees, particularly excessive in-vehicle confinement during night operations, and issues with interpretation provision and the handling of vulnerable individuals. While positive engagement from escorts was noted, the Board raised concerns about medical confidentiality, increasing use of restraint, and some coach safety incidents.
Positive Findings
The Board noted improvements in the provision of professional interpreters compared to the previous year. Escorts generally demonstrated a friendly, respectful, and professional approach towards returnees, often engaging positively during the stressful removal process. Positive examples included escorts safeguarding personal property, effectively de-escalating challenging situations, and showing sensitivity towards vulnerable returnees and families. Continuity of care from paramedics was appropriate, with evidence of forward planning for medication.
Key Concerns
Safety
HOIE continued to remove people with known vulnerabilities, whether around their mental health or their risk of harming themselves.
Safety
There was an increase in the use of restraint on returnees as compared with 2022.
Safety
Not all the coaches in which returnees travelled to the airport were driven safely.
Regime/Time Out of Cell
Repeated
It is neither fair nor humane to subject people being removed from the country: to a process for their delivery to the airport, which always takes place through the night, in order to meet an arrival timetable HOIE has agreed with the Albanian authorities and (as part of this process) to hours of confinement in vehicles in order to reach departure airports selected by HOIE.
Equality/Diversity
Repeated
The processes used to identify interpretation needs are unreliable and should be improved.
Staffing
Senior escorts’ lack of familiarity with the current version of the ACDT should be urgently addressed.
Regime/Time Out of Cell
Repeated
The length of time returnees are held in coaches, before the road journey to the selected airport even begins, is another long-standing concern of ours. These long periods of confinement have continued and should be reduced.
Equality/Diversity
Repeated
The plan given in response to our 2022 annual report, detailing the various steps escorts would take to achieve interpreting support for returnees when a professional interpreter was not present, has been achieved to only a limited extent. The plan was impressive. It needs to be fully delivered.
Mental Health
We had concerns around the removal of a man in the summer directly from a psychiatric unit.
Healthcare
The handover of medical documents and medication to the Albanian receiving authorities (instead of directly to returnees) represents a potential, if not actual, breach of medical confidentiality, with no guarantee they would be restored to their rightful owners.
Resettlement/Release
The Board was not able to discover the extent to which some returnees, including a vulnerable individual referred to in the Appendix, had been properly prepared for removal in advance.
Board Commentary
Staffing
HOIE's escort contractor, Mitie Care and Custody, provided staff for charter flights, with new escorts receiving additional briefings. The Board identified a training need for lead escorts regarding care plan documents. Staffing for the CFMT itself decreased during the year, from five members to four, and the team is actively recruiting.
Healthcare
Healthcare services for charter flights were provided by IPRS Aeromed. Paramedics oversaw the physical and mental healthcare of returnees, dispensing medication and attending to minor ailments, with the Board noting appropriate continuity of care. However, concerns were raised regarding the removal of a man directly from a psychiatric unit and a potential breach of medical confidentiality due to medication being handed to Albanian authorities instead of directly to returnees.
Regime & Daily Life
The Board expressed significant and long-standing concerns about the humane treatment of returnees, particularly the extensive periods of in-vehicle confinement. All transfers and journeys to the airport occurred during the night, often involving hours of being held in parked coaches or enduring long road trips due to airport selection and operational timetables. This led to returnees being confined for up to nine and a half hours, impacting their rest and well-being.
Recommendations (5)
Home Office: 4
Other: 1
4 repeated
Recommendation 1
Repeated
Prev. unaddressed
A fairer and more humane approach should be adopted to the process for delivering people to the airport, addressing the current practice of night-time operations and hours of confinement in vehicles due to HOIE’s selected airports and arrival timetables.
Home Office
Regime
Recommendation 2
Repeated
Prev. unaddressed
The processes used to identify interpretation needs are unreliable and should be improved.
Home Office
Equality
Recommendation 3
Senior escorts’ lack of familiarity with the current version of the ACDT should be urgently addressed.
Home Office
Staffing
Recommendation 4
Repeated
Prev. unaddressed
The long periods of confinement during which returnees are held in coaches before the road journey to the selected airport even begins, which have continued, should be reduced.
Home Office
Regime
Recommendation 5
Repeated
Prev. unaddressed
The plan given in response to our 2022 annual report, detailing the various steps escorts would take to achieve interpreting support for returnees when a professional interpreter was not present, has been achieved to only a limited extent. The plan was impressive. It needs to be fully delivered.
Other
(other)
Equality