By Hallam Tuck

 ‘Under the Home Office, and its contractor G4S, Brooke House was not sufficiently decent, secure, or caring for detained people or its staff. An environment flourished in which unacceptable treatment became more likely.’ Kate Eves, Chair of the Brook House Inquiry.

 The Brook House Inquiry report published on 19th September has exposed the inexcusable and dehumanizing treatment of vulnerable people held in immigration detention by the Home Office. The Inquiry found the safeguarding system in detention to be ‘dysfunctional’, resulting in a failure to protect detained people as intended. Examining a five-month period, the inquiry identified 19 incidents of credible breaches of Article 3 of the ECHR, which prohibits torture, inhumane and degrading treatment.

The BHI report re-affirms the robust, existing body of evidence demonstrating the harms of immigration detention. Evidence collected by the Inquiry demonstrates clearly that the failure of detention safeguards meant that people’s wellbeing was allowed to deteriorate, without adequate provision for medical or mental health care. The report also presents clear evidence that staff at Brook House routinely used physical force against detainees in inappropriate and unnecessary ways. According to the inquiry, a ‘toxic culture’ prevailed at Brook House, fuelled by the ‘prisonisation’ of the facility. The Home Office and G4S allowed a culture to develop which was a ‘breeding ground for racist views’ with the routine use of racial stereotyping and abusive and derogatory language by custodial staff.

The report also makes 33 recommendations for ‘necessary’ changes to both Brook House and the wider immigration detention system. These recommendations include:

  • A 28-day time limit on immigration detention

  • A fundamental review of the safeguarding framework under Rule 35 of the Detention Centre Rules 2001, as no significant improvements to the standard of safeguarding have been made since 2017.

  • A comprehensive review of the use of force in immigration detention.

  • Training for healthcare staff on their safeguarding role, including in relation to the use of force.

  • Review of a range of policies relating to segregation, food and fluid refusals.

Overall, the evidence presented to the Inquiry clearly demonstrates that the Home Office is not capable of providing a system of immigration detention which respects fundamental rights. Detention is an intrinsically harmful environment that risks harming people’s health, safety and dignity. Vulnerable people have and still continue to suffer harm as a result of a dysfunctional system.

As the Chair of the Inquiry, Kate Eves, observed in her statement on the release of the report, ‘the events that occurred at Brook House cannot be repeated.’ Indeed, noting the government’s plans to expand the use of immigration detention, which includes the reopening of Campsfield and Haslar detention centres, Eves observes that ‘any expansion or other change should be considered in the context of learning lessons from past failures. The failure to act on previous recommendations is a dark thread that runs through this report. With depressing regularity, I am making broadly similar findings and recommendations to those made in the long line of investigations that proceeded this inquiry.’

Rather than expanding the use of detention, we agree with the British Medical Association that the only solution is to phase out detention and consider credible alternatives (as identified by UNHCR). It would be unconscionable for the government to press ahead with its planned massive expansion of detention, including the reopening of Campsfield, knowing of the abuse and harm that detention causes, and which the government presides over. The government must commit to implementing the recommendations from the Brook House Inquiry in order to ensure the safety and welfare of detained people, and reconsider their plans to expand the use of detention across the UK.