|
Altcourse Prison, UK
April
28, 2008 BBC
A man accused of raping an 18-year-old woman has died after apparently
hanging himself in his cell. Mathew Le Cras, 21, of Newborough on Anglesey,
was taken to hospital on Thursday from Liverpool's Altcourse jail where he
was being held on remand. Doctors are thought to have switched off his
life-support machine. He had been charged with the rape of the woman near
Gaerwen and had been due at Mold Crown Court for a preliminary hearing on
Friday. A spokesman for GSL, which runs the private jail, confirmed Mr Le
Cras had died. He had been held at Altcourse prison for a week He is
thought to have been found by a prison officer.
April 27, 2008 Daily Post
A 21-YEAR-OLD man accused of raping an 18-year-old woman on Anglesey
has died. Matthew James Lecras, of Church Street, Newborough, was rushed to
hospital early on Thursday, hours before he was due in court. A spokeswoman
for Global Solutions Ltd, the private company which runs Altcourse Prison,
Liverpool, where he was being held, said that Lecras had been found in his
cell by a member of staff during a routine check. Lecras was being held on
remand accused of raping a woman at Gaerwen on April 14. The hearing at
Mold Crown court continued in his absence on Friday after the judge heard
he was seriously ill in hospital.
April 26, 2008 Daily Post
A 21-YEAR-OLD man accused of raping an 18-year-old woman on Anglesey was in
a critical condition last night in hospital. Matthew James Lecras, of
Church Street, Newborough, was rushed to hospital early on Thursday, hours
before he was due in court. A spokeswoman for Global Solutions Ltd, the
private company which runs Altcourse Prison, Liverpool, where he was being
held, said that Lecras had been found in his cell by a member of staff
during a routine check. It is unclear why he had to be taken to hospital.
The spokeswoman said: “He is in a life threatening condition in hospital
and an investigation into the circumstances is underway.”
March 26, 2006 Wales on Sunday
A WOMAN whose husband threatened to kill her then committed suicide in
jail, is fighting his corner for the sake of their young daughter. Vowing
to sue the private prison where her mentally ill ex hanged himself in the
days following their divorce, Karen Crabtree wants justice for their
four-year-old girl "who has lost her daddy". The Llandudno
mum-of-one was devastated last summer when Altcourse Prison in Liverpool
told her Lee was dead. The troubled 32-year-old - who believed Karen was
the devil - was found hanging from a bunk bed by a fellow inmate's shoelaces
in July.
March 23, 2006 BBC
An inquest has heard of concerns of a prison officer and a cellmate for
the mental health of a remand prisoner, who was later found hanged in his
cell. Lee Crabtree, 32, from Llandudno, had been placed on suicide watch at
Altcourse Prison, Liverpool, last July. He was seen several times by
medical staff during his time in prison. His cellmate said that he was
"depressed to death". The inquest in Liverpool continues on
Thursday. Mr Crabtree was discovered in a cell on "Beachers
Block", the unit which normally holds remand prisoners and young
offenders. The inquest heard how prisoners on suicide watch are supposed to
be placed with cellmates, but Mr Crabtree was alone on the day he died
because his cellmate was in court. In a statement, his cellmate Raymond
Smith said Mr Crabtree was "depressed to death," and "sick
in the head". He added: "He had said the devil was playing games
with him and that he was being tested."
September 23, 2005 BBC
Ten prisoners who rioted after they claimed guards tried to lock them up
early on New Year's Eve have been sentenced by a court. The men caused
damage costing £17,500 after barricading themselves inside a wing at
Altcourse prison in Liverpool. They staged a sit-in protest after guards
attempted to lock them up for the night on 31 December 2004. Mr Davies said
the prisoners took over the wing for more than four hours before a team of
50 officers, known as the Tornado Team, took back control. The prison wing
had descended into chaos with inmates smashing windows, destroying pool
tables and lighting fires.
September 2, 2005 BBC
An investigation is under way following the death of a remand prisoner in a
hospital, the Prison Service has said. Robin Spavold, 44, from Llandudno,
North Wales, was held at HMP Altcourse in Liverpool on 18 August after
being charged with criminal damage. He was taken to the prison's health
centre because he was suffering from severe bruising. Mr Spavold was
transferred to the nearby Fazakerley Hospital, and died on Thursday. He
suffered a cardiac arrest.
August 16, 2005 Daily Post
PRIVATELY-RUN Altcourse Prison has been named the most overcrowded in the
country with figures showing that last month it held 50% more inmates than
it was designed to hold. According to Home Office statistics, more than 933
prisoners were crammed into the Fazakerley jail, which was built to
accommodate 614. The figures show that Altcourse was full beyond even its
safe over-crowding limit of 903. Anything above that limit is considered a
serious risk to "good order and security" Last night Walton MP
Peter Kilfoyle, who has both Altcourse and Walton prisons in his
constituency, said: "There has to be a suspicion that in a private
prison such as Altcourse, the more prisoners they take in, the more money
they get.
July
13, 2005 BBC
An inquiry has been launched after two men were found hanged in their cells
at a prison in Liverpool. Lee Jason Crabtree, 32, from Llandudno, Conwy,
was found dead on Monday at HM Prison Altcourse. David Oakes, 25, from Warrington,
Cheshire, was found on Tuesday. The two deaths are not thought to be
linked. The privately-run jail has recently been praised by prison
inspectors for its good environment and work with mentally ill inmates. But
the report, by the Chief Inspector of Prisons Anne Owers, also highlighted
bullying among prisoners and criticised procedures for inmates' first night
in jail.
Australia Immigration Department
October
31, 2006 Sidney Morning Herald
THE Federal Government is winding back private management of
immigration detention centres after years of controversy over the
compromised health and psychological care of detainees. The Immigration
Minister, Amanda Vanstone, said yesterday the Government was relieving a
private company of its responsibility for health and psychological
services, which would be transferred to the direct control of her
department. The move follows the recommendations of a review triggered by
the Palmer report into the deficiencies of care in detention highlighted by
the case of Cornelia Rau, the psychiatric patient whose illness went
undiagnosed for several months. Global Solutions Ltd, whose management of
health services has drawn criticisms of care standards and conflict of
interest, denied the loss of services was "in any way the result of
dissatisfaction with the services provided" by Global Solutions. A
company spokesman said the review of the centres had not criticised the
health and psychological services it managed. But the company's management
of the centres and detainee health services had represented a
"fundamental conflict of interest", said Louise Newman, a
psychiatrist and a member of a government expert advisory panel on
detention health. Professor Newman said the failings in health care and
psychological services, highlighted by the Rau saga and other cases of
inadequate care, had resulted in "incalculable" suffering for
detainees.
March 2, 2006 Sidney Morning Herald
The immigration department made an unexplained $5.7 million payout to the
company that used to manage Australia's detention centres, an audit has
found. The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) has identified a series
of anomalies, potential conflicts and inadequate record-keeping in a review
of the department's contracts with companies paid to run the centres. The
department put detention centre management out to tender in 2001 and a $400
million, four-year contract with Global Solutions Limited (GSL) was
ultimately signed in August, 2003. But the ANAO has found DIMIA, now DIMA,
wanted to "encourage" the former contractor to end its management
of the centres with a contract "completion payment". As a result,
Australasian Correctional Management (ACM) received a payout of almost $6
million. "DIMIA was not able to provide evidence of the criteria it
used to make its determination to pay ACM $5.7 million in contract
completion payments," the ANAO said in its report. "The basis on
which DIMIA made these payments was doubtful," it said. Labor says the
audit's findings are a scandal. "What we have is nothing short of a
scandal in the way the government has handled this," opposition
immigration spokesman Tony Burke said. "The people who were involved
in the negotiations of the contracts on behalf of the department became
horribly compromised. "Records weren't kept, records were lost, and
some of the records that we have are conflicting."
July 29, 2005 ABC
Detention centre operator to pay for maltreatment. The private
operators of Australia's detention centres, Global Solutions Limited (GSL),
will be penalised more than $500,000 for poorly handling five immigration
detainees. The GSL officers have been accused of treating the
detainees in an inhumane and undignified manner when the detainees were
being transferred from Maribyrnong detention centre in Victoria to the
Baxter centre in South Australia in September 2004. An investigation has
found that the GSL officers used force against one detainee. It has
also found that overall they failed to provide adequate medical assessment,
deprived the detainees of toilet breaks, did not allow them to rest and did
not give them enough food during a seven-hour road trip.
July 14, 2005 Daily Telegraph
THE federal government has apologised to Cornelia Rau and Vivian Alvarez
for their treatment at the hands of the immigration department. Prime
Minister John Howard said both women were owed an apology. "Both
Cornelia Rau and Mrs Alvarez are owed apologies for their treatment, and on
behalf of the government I give those apologies to both of those women who
were the victims of mistakes by the department," Mr Howard told
reporters. Mr Howard and Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone today
released the Palmer report into the immigration department, which
catalogues a litany of failures that led to Ms Rau being wrongly detained
for 10 months, and Ms Alvarez, also known as Vivian Solon, being wrongly
deported. In a statement accompanying the release of the report, Senator
Vanstone said the pair would receive assistance. Mick Palmer, a
former federal police commissioner, was appointed to look into the case of
Ms Rau. His inquiry was later widened to include the case of Ms
Alvarez. After criticising the government's contract with Global
Solutions Limited (GSL), which runs the immigration detention centres, Mr
Palmer recommended an expert group review the company's contract.
Senator Vanstone said Mr Palmer was critical of the department's policy of
'exception reporting', where instead of outlining what should be done, the
contract outlined what must not be done to make it as flexible as
possible. "But Mr Palmer's not of the view that the other
regulations surrounding detention allow that flexibility to be there,"
Senator Vanstone said.
Baxter Immigration Facility, Australia
November
14, 2007 The Age
THE Federal Government faces another humiliating compensation payout
that could run into millions of dollars as a result of court action taken
by a Vietnamese-born man. Tony Tran, 35, was unlawfully detained for more
than five years and badly bashed in early 2005 at the Baxter Detention
Centre by a mentally ill inmate with a history of violence, a statement of
claim filed in the Supreme Court of Victoria says. He was also separated
from his son Hai and not told by the Government in 2000 that Hai, then two
years old, would be taken by the boy's mother to South Korea, the country
of her birth. Three years later the boy was left by his mother with Mr
Tran's brother in Australia and later placed in foster care for 14 months
after the brother could no longer care for Hai. Mr Tran is seeking
compensation from the Federal Government for physical and psychological
damage. If successful, any compensation was likely to run into millions of
dollars, said litigation expert Anne Gooley, from Maurice Blackburn
Cashman. "How do you compensate somebody for detaining them unlawfully
for five years?" she said. Ms Gooley expects the case to be settled
before it goes to a full hearing.
April 9, 2007 The Australian
THE Federal Government says it is still waiting for a list of claims
from the lawyers for Cornelia Rau, an Australian resident detained as an
illegal immigrant. Ms Rau's lawyers said today they would sue the
Government over her treatment, amid difficulties in reaching a negotiated
resolution. Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews said the Government still
hoped to reach an out-of-court settlement. "The Government has written
to Ms Rau's lawyer a number of times over the past few months seeking to
obtain a list of claims to enable the Commonwealth to settle this
matter," Mr Andrews said through a spokeswoman. "We wish to
settle it as expeditiously as possible. "We're just waiting on Ms Rau
to provide us with a list of her claims. We can't process a final
settlement ... quickly without actually receiving a claim for what she may
wish to have compensation for. George Newhouse, one of Ms Rau's solicitors,
said the Government's contracting out of Baxter detention centre's
operations to Global Solutions Limited appeared to have complicated his
client's compensation claim. "The Commonwealth Government has its own
financial arrangements with the operators of the detention centre that
appear to be complicating Cornelia's case," he said. "That's not
Cornelia Rau's problem. It was the Commonwealth Government that set up this
ridiculous system of immigration detention. "She shouldn't suffer
because of the Commonwealth Government's privatisation of detention."
December 12, 2006 ABC News
More than 30 detainees are reported to be staging a protest at the
Baxter detention centre near Port Augusta in South Australia. A caller to
the ABC, who says he is a detainee at Baxter, says a group of detainees has
blocked the front gate of the detention centre, and others are on a hunger
strike. He says the protest follows reports of several detainees harming
themselves to draw attention to their frustrations. "It's just a
process of long-term immigration detention, it's unnecessary, it's
unreasonable," he said. "Any other country in the world - and
Australia is a wonderful country - but any other country in the world, they
detain you for 30 days, they identify you, then they release you.
"There is no purpose for us being here. "We have been vilified by
the Government in order to justify our detention. This is unfair." The
Immigration Department says there have been five incidents in the past four
days. The Department says this morning a detainee was taken to hospital
after an incident that is still being investigated. It says two detainees
jumped from the roof on Friday, a detainee climbed a tree on Saturday and
was treated for heat exhaustion when he came down, and on Sunday another
man climbed onto a roof before coming down again.
March 20, 2006 The Age
AT LEAST two long-term immigration detainees — one held for 6½ years —
are in a psychiatric hospital after developing mental problems while in
detention, the Greens claim. The man who has spent more than six years in
detention, a 34-year-old from Bangladesh, was moved from Baxter detention
centre last August to Adelaide's Glenside psychiatric hospital. The other
man, whose family are Australian citizens, has been detained for more than
two years. "This period of time in detention makes this man another
Peter Qasim, the long-term detainee who was recently released after seven
years," Greens senator Kerry Nettle said. Their cases have been raised
by the Greens as up to 100 detainees at Sydney's Villawood detention centre
entered the fourth day of a hunger strike aimed at forcing the release of
mentally ill detainees held for more than two years.
March 3, 2006 Sidney Morning Herald
A DAY of turmoil in the nation's immigration system ended with the
Federal Government backing down on several fronts yesterday. It agreed to
pay damages to a boy traumatised in detention and allowed a deported
Melbourne man to return to Australia on humanitarian grounds. A damning
report released by an independent auditor yesterday also raised questions
about a successful 2003 bid by the immigration detention contractor GSL,
whose contract the Government refused to renew on Wednesday. In Sydney, an
11-year-old Iranian, Shayan Badraie, was offered damages for trauma he
suffered in Woomera and Villawood detention centres. The move comes after a
63-day Supreme Court hearing. While in detention between March 2000 and
August 2001, the boy became severely traumatised after witnessing riots, a
stabbing and a string of other disturbing incidents. He subsequently spent
94 days in hospital, and still requires treatment. Commonwealth lawyers
approached lawyers representing Shayan this week to offer a settlement for
damages. The exact sum will be fixed at a hearing this morning but is
expected to be more than $1 million. Meanwhile, the immigration detention
contractor GSL was found to have been hired even though it was more
expensive and provided inferior services to competitors, the National Audit
Office announced yesterday. GSL's bid was $32.6 million higher than that of
the incumbent detention centre operator, ACM, when the latter's bid
expired. The audit office found the basis on which ACM was paid $5.7
million after it missed out on the contract was "doubtful", since
the department was only required to compensate for matters pertaining to
detention. Immigration could not provide evidence of the criteria under
which the sum was paid. The audit also found the head of the steering
committee, which was heavily involved in the evaluation of the bids, gave a
reference for ACM's bid. An independent probity adviser told the steering
committee seven months later that this should not happen again.
March 2, 2006 The Age
THE CONTROVERSIAL private operator of Australia's detention centres will
not have its lucrative $90-million-a-year contract extended. An independent
review, carried out in the wake of the Cornelia Rau and Vivian Alvarez
Solon scandals, found that changes to the contract were required. Yesterday
Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone said all detention services would be
re-tendered as part of sweeping reforms to prevent a repeat of the problems
that engulfed the Immigration Department last year. GSL, which also
operates Victoria's Port Phillip Prison, took over the running of
Australia's detention centres in late 2003. The company has come under
intense scrutiny, with critics claiming it has introduced a punitive prison
regime to detention centres, including the use of solitary confinement. In
July last year GSL was penalised more than $500,000 after a report said
five detainees endured 6½ hours in the back of a van with no toilet breaks
and no food or water while being transferred between the Maribyrnong and
Baxter detention centres. Senator Vanstone said that although there was an
option to extend the contract with GSL when it expired late next year, the
Government had decided to re-tender after a report by former Health
Department deputy secretary Mick Roche found changes to the contract were
required.The Palmer report on the treatment of Cornelia Rau, an Australian
resident wrongfully detained for 10 months in a Brisbane jail and the
Baxter detention centre, was scathing about the inadequate health care she
received at Baxter. It also said the Government's contract with GSL was
"fundamentally flawed" and failed to deliver the immigration
detention policy expected by the Government. A damning Auditor-General's
report last year said health standards in detention centres were not
clearly spelt out in the contract. Another National Audit Office Report, to
be tabled in Parliament today, is also expected to be critical of the
detention services contract.
January 31, 2006 Scoop
The Victorian Greens Spokesperson on Refugees, Peter Job, today expressed
his concerns about growing discontent amongst asylum seekers about their
treatment in Baxter detention centre due to the Intransigent policies of
the Department of Immigration and its subcontractor Global Solutions
Limited. Mr. Job explained that he had just completed a three day visit to
Baxter, during which he met with over twenty detainees from a variety of
backgrounds. “Despite claims from the Department to be cleaning up its act,
the detainees I spoke to claimed the situation in Baxter is actually
getting worse, giving consistent accounts of increasingly repressive and
heavy handed treatment by management,” Mr. Job said. “They spoke of
increasingly intrusive and undignified searches of their bodies and
property, especially when accessing the visitor’s compound. They spoke of
run down facilities, where broken telephones, kitchen items and leisure
facilities were not fixed for months, despite continued requests from
detainees. They also continued to complain about the appalling quality of
the food, which they claimed had not improved despite the Minister’s
assurances to the contrary. “Above all they pointed to a culture in which
their opinions and complaints are belittled and ignored, where incidents of
discontent are further provoked rather than deescalated, and in which
detainees are given little respect as human beings.”
November 23, 2005 Green Left Weekly
I wasn't involved in the asylum seeker debate in 2001 when the government's
actions on Tampa were, in their opinion, decisive in getting them
re-elected. It was an accident of circumstance that my family was given a
voice this past year: we had an obligation to point out the hypocrisy of
having one set of rights for citizens and another for suspected
"illegals" who are left to rot for years in detention centres
without the rule of law to protect them. Even though it took months for all
the nasty specifics of Cornelia's treatment to emerge, the broader themes
were clear from the outset: the lack of morality - not to mention the
expense - of detaining innocent people and hiding them away in the desert;
the overall levels of secrecy; the farming out of detention centres to
for-profit corporations; the use of punitive isolation to control behaviour;
the unchecked power of ill-qualified immigration bureaucrats and privately
employed security guards; and the absence of judicial review. The failures
exposed by Cornelia's case have hardly been addressed. The reforms
emanating from Mick Palmer's inquiry into the wrongful imprisonment of
Cornelia have given a greater review role to the federal ombudsman (but
only after someone's been detained for two years) and many long-term
detainees are being quietly released. A couple of sports fields have been
added to Baxter and some of the razor wire in Villawood coming down with
great fanfare - only to be replaced by electrified fence. In detention
centres, the lack of palatable food has been a deeply felt source of
contention. The food issue, so seemingly trivial when compared with
indefinite detention, can lead to avoidable tension and abuses. This has
not changed. Cornelia's case: In early February, Cornelia was just another
non-person in Baxter, receiving no treatment for a florid psychosis. The
rest of our family was living in suburban obscurity. We were dragged into
public life in early February 2005 when the media became interested. Even
before the government announced the Palmer inquiry - only five days after
Cornelia was identified - we were getting calls from people with
information about what had happened to her during her brush with DIMIA. I
was determined to expose the more appalling misuses of power during
Cornelia's time behind the wire, much of it in punitive isolation. In the
first few days, Senator Amanda Vanstone's office put out various bits of
misinformation about how wonderful DIMIA had been to Cornelia and to us.
No-one had contacted us. We learned of the phantom medical care being given
to detainees. There were horrific cases of neglect: the young child with a
broken thumb, which turned purple and swollen in the week it took for him
to get medical attention; the man complaining of severe headaches who was
fobbed off with Panadol for two years until he collapsed one night between
compounds and started to turn blue after which he was finally rushed to
hospital where neurosurgeons operated for 12 hours to contain the burst
aneurism. There was the woman in Villawood in NSW who couldn't establish
breastfeeding with her newborn because guards were in her hospital room 24
hours a day. During the delivery, a guard even gowned up to watch the
caesarian, worried no doubt, she might jump up from the table and abscond
during the procedure. There were stories of sexual assaults by guards, and
in one case, a hastily arranged abortion. Many of our interviewees were
worried about repercussions and asked for confidentiality. The former
detainees and their families were able to tell us how places like Baxter
really worked in practice, how the medical services that DIMIA described in
such glowing terms, breached the duty of care requirements. Interview
transcripts and court affidavits, including from DIMIA staff that
flagrantly contradicted the sort of eyewitness evidence we were getting,
were passed onto the university. One such chilling document was the
"Behaviour Management Plan" (BMP) from Global Solutions Limited
(GSL, the company that runs Baxter among other corrections institutions),
which set out rules for detainees in the punishment compound at Baxter, Red
One. This is where Cornelia spent 94 days in a psychosis, which had been
discerned by other detainees. Evidence we were given showed GSL even
flouted its own management plan for much of the time Cornelia was in Red
One. For example, detainees have to sign a consent to the BMP before they
enter the compound. Cornelia signed no such document. Under the strictest
stage of the plan, detainees are allowed four hours out of their cell. In
Cornelia's case, we were told by eyewitnesses that on many days she was
given only two hours' egress, or none at all. At least on one occasion,
Cornelia was punched in the chest so hard she fell backwards into her cell
so the guards could lock her inside. [Abridged from a speech by Christine
Rau, Cornelia's sister, to the Queensland Public Interest Law Clearing
House on October 18. For the full text see
<http://www.qpilch.org.au/>.]
November 14, 2005 The Age
THE Immigration Department says it will have no hesitation in pursuing
criminal charges against detainees who allegedly lit a series of fires at
the Baxter detention centre. One detainee was taken to hospital and five
others were treated for smoke inhalation on Saturday as a result of four
fires that destroyed 14 accommodation rooms and forced the evacuation of 58
detainees at the South Australian facility. The Immigration Department said
the damage bill was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The fires
forced the removal of 54 detainees to other parts of the centre. Four who
are of interest to the police have been isolated and are under constant
watch. The fires began in a kitchen, and fire authorities have said the
fact there were a number of separate fires suggested there was some unrest
at the centre.
November 12, 2005 The Age
One man has been taken to hospital and five others treated for smoke
inhalation after a series of fires forced evacuations at the Baxter
Detention centre in South Australia. Fifty-eight men being held in
detention were evacuated from the White One compound after fires started at
the Port Augusta centre around 4am local time a spokesman for the
immigration department said. Six of those evacuated were treated on the
scene for smoke inhalation with one of them taken to hospital for further
treatment. The four separate fires caused more than $25,000 worth of damage
and were probably deliberately lit, according to a fire services spokesman.
November 2, 2005 Sidney Morning Herald
Laws that follow through on the government's compromise deal with rebel
backbenchers over its tough immigration detention policy were introduced to
the lower house on Wednesday. Three-month time limits on deciding
protection visa applications and decisions by the Refugee Review Tribunal
are two of the major changes introduced in the bill. In addition, the
department will be able to release the identity and photographs of people
being detained when all other efforts to identify or locate them have
failed. This is to rectify the reluctance on DIMIA's part to release
information about the mentally ill Australian resident Cornelia Rau who was
wrongly locked up in immigration detention for 10 months. Labor's
immigration spokesman Tony Burke described the bill as "an incremental
step in the right direction". Mr Burke wants the government's
contracts with the private company running Australia's immigration
detention centres, Global Solutions Ltd, terminated and the management of
the centres returned to government hands.
September 13, 2005 The Australian
ILLEGAL immigrants held in detention will be offered taste testing of
prospective menus and weekly barbecues in a further attempt by the Howard
Government to soften its hardline image on asylum-seekers. The move follows
complaints from detainees about the quality of food, including reports of
maggot-infested meat, at the privately run Baxter Detention Centre at Port
Augusta, South Australia. A confidential government report found food
quality had been so bad at Baxter - administered by British conglomerate
Global Solutions - that consultants witnessed three-quarters of meals being
thrown in bins, with some detainees reporting they were prepared to eat
only three or four main meals a week. The report says meals at Baxter often
developed a "stewed" appearance, with food "very wet at
times, the sauce unthickened and tasteless, or dried out". Immigration
Department deputy secretary Bob Correll said yesterday food at Baxter had
not been provided to standards required under the contract with GSL. He
said there was a direct link between unrest in detention centres and food
quality. "Sometimes food has not been served at correct temperature or
it is bland," he said. "Special requests in relation to cultural and religious
issues were also not being met." The federal Government's
$300million contract with GSL is under review. The Palmer Report into the
case of Cornelia Rau - a mentally ill Australian resident wrongfully
detained at Baxter - found that GSL's contract had "little emphasis on
service quality or the establishment of an equitable detention
environment".
September 6, 2005 The Age
CONDITIONS at Baxter detention centre are not conducive to good mental
health, with more than a fifth of detainees on tranquillisers and
anti-depressants, a damning report by a bipartisan parliamentary committee
says. The joint standing committee on migration, chaired by Liberal backbencher
Don Randall, spoke to about 25 long-term detainees during a visit to Baxter
detention centre, near Port Augusta in South Australia, in April this year.
"For the committee the three main concerns to emerge from the
inspection were the length of detention, mental health in detention and the
possibility of physical abuse," Mr Randall says in a report tabled in
Parliament yesterday. "The committee cannot deny the impact of
long-term detention." When
the committee visited Baxter on April 19, more than 50 of the 240 detainees
were on anti-depressants and many slept for long periods during the day. The
report comes two months after the scathing Palmer inquiry into the wrongful
detention of Cornelia Rau, which found mental health care at Baxter was
inadequate by any standards.
August 26, 2005 The Age
Police have launched an investigation into claims that guards at South
Australia's Baxter detention centre deliberately twisted an asylum seeker's
leg until it broke. The Immigration Department has confirmed Peter Mode, a
24-year-old from Zimbabwe, suffered a broken fibula during a violent
incident involving three detainees and several guards at the centre on
Tuesday. South Australian police are investigating the incident and Mr Mode
plans to make an official complaint. Mr Mode said he was assaulted by
guards when he sought to protect another inmate, named John, after he threw
his meal against a wall, complaining the fish being served to detainees
tasted of dust. Mr Mode said seven guards arrived at John's room on Tuesday
night to take him to the Red One maximum security unit. "I started
arguing with them; 'No you can't take him out of his room, he had an
operation last week'," Mr Mode told ABC Radio. "And then I was
trying to struggle with them and then they pushed me down to the ground and
then one of the officers held my leg. "I was kicking back (saying)
'Just leave me alone'. "Then they pushed the leg and it broke to the
ankle." Mr Mode said he told the guard he had broken his leg but he
continued to twist it.
August 2, 2005 The Age
The Immigration Department has admitted it had provided misleading answers
about a group of detainees who were found to have been inhumanely treated
during a transfer to Baxter detention centre. The department yesterday
blamed private contractor Global Solutions Limited for its mistake, saying
it was relying on information from the detention centre operator. A
spokeswoman from the department's media unit admitted it had provided misleading
answers to questions from The Age about the incident because "this is
what we were told at the time". The admission has sparked renewed
calls for GSL's contract to be terminated. Five detainees claimed they were
forcibly removed from Maribyrnong detention centre on September 17 last
year, put in the back of a van and driven for what seemed to be 10 hours
with no toilet breaks and no food or water. In a detailed response to the
allegations on September 21 last year, the department said the detainees travelled
in "a special-purpose air-conditioned vehicle". "There was a
break in a major regional centre a number of hours out of Melbourne where
the detainees had a meal and stretched their legs for an hour," the
spokeswoman said. "During the drive they had access to food and drink
and secure places for toilet stops all along the routes, so the detainees
only needed to ask if they required a stop." An independent report on
the incident, released late on Friday night by the department, found that
the detainees were treated in "an inhumane and undignified
manner" and denied food, water and toilet breaks for 6½ hours on the
Melbourne-Mildura leg of the journey. The report, by the former head of
Queensland Corrective Services, Keith Hamburger, found that appeals for
assistance from the detainees were disregarded. One of the detainees said
he was forced to urinate "like a dog" in the compartment of the
van where he was held. The report also found that force was used on one
detainee and that the van used to transport them was "totally
unsuitable" for the long trip from Melbourne to South Australia. The
Immigration Department and GSL have apologised to the detainees, two
managers have resigned and the company has been fined more than $500,000.
The Immigration Department spokeswoman said yesterday that the
"information (given to The Age) was what should have happened"
and that the Hamburger report confirmed that GSL officers had given the
department misleading information. "Someone from GSL has already been
sanctioned for supplying wrong information to the department," she
said. Labor's immigration spokesman, Tony Burke, said the episode showed a
lack of clear lines of responsibility and communication. "The
department should be out there on the front line so that it knows what's
happening to detainees and so it can communicate the message rather than
become an extension of the culture of cover-up," he said.
August 1, 2005 The Age
A traumatised asylum seeker has told how he was forced to urinate
"same as dog" in the back of a van during a hellish trip between
Maribyrnong and Baxter detention centres last year. A damning report,
released late on Friday night by the Immigration Department, found that
five detainees were denied food, water, medical treatment and toilet stops for
six-and-a-half hours on the Melbourne-Mildura leg of the journey. The
independent report found the detainees were humiliated and treated in an
"inhumane and undignified manner". The asylum seeker, who does
not want to be named in case it affects his visa application, told The Age
a guard gave him 10 minutes' notice of his transfer last September from the
Maribyrnong centre in Melbourne to Baxter north of Port Augusta in South
Australia last year. "I wanted to call a lawyer. He said, 'No, take
your stuff now'," the asylum seeker said. He said the five detainees
were pushed into the van by guards working for detention centre operator
Global Solutions Limited. One detainee, who struggled, broke a bone while
being forced into the van, the asylum seeker said. He said the van, which
was divided into compartments, was dark. The space he was put in was so
small he couldn't move. "The guards said, 'If you die inside no one
will know'," the man said. "I can't see anything. For eight hours
there was no toilet, I had to go in the van, same as dog." He said the
detainees were not fed until they arrived at Mildura police station, where
they had an hour's break. "I can't believe it," he said.
"GSL and the Immigration Department are the law, they can do anything.
I didn't know much English, I didn't know what to say to who." He said
that although he still felt angry, he did not want compensation. "I'm
angry for treating me like a dog," he said. " I don't want money.
All I want is for the minister to give me the visa." The Immigration
Department apologised for the "very regrettable incident". New
department secretary Andrew Metcalfe said GSL would be penalised more than
$500,000 and he would refer the matter to police to investigate if criminal
offences were committed. Two GSL managers have resigned.
July
25, 2005 Herald Sun
DETAINEES at the Baxter detention centre rioted on Friday night, causing up
to $70,000 worth of damage to the complex.
The riot was sparked by complaints of bad food, according to police.
Police are expected to charge some of the 25 detainees who damaged a
kitchen, mess hall and store room during the disturbance. The
Department of Immigration said the five minute riot caused between $50,000
and $70,000 damage to the centre in South Australia's North.
A Department spokesman said complaints about the evening meal of lamb
aubergine sparked the riot in a compound called Blue Two.
Detainees damaged security cameras, lighting, tables, chairs and food
warmers during the disturbance, the spokesman said.
July 14, 2005 Daily Telegraph
THE federal government has apologised to Cornelia Rau and Vivian Alvarez
for their treatment at the hands of the immigration department. Prime
Minister John Howard said both women were owed an apology. "Both
Cornelia Rau and Mrs Alvarez are owed apologies for their treatment, and on
behalf of the government I give those apologies to both of those women who
were the victims of mistakes by the department," Mr Howard told
reporters. Mr Howard and Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone today
released the Palmer report into the immigration department, which
catalogues a litany of failures that led to Ms Rau being wrongly detained
for 10 months, and Ms Alvarez, also known as Vivian Solon, being wrongly
deported. In a statement accompanying the release of the report, Senator
Vanstone said the pair would receive assistance. Mick Palmer, a
former federal police commissioner, was appointed to look into the case of
Ms Rau. His inquiry was later widened to include the case of Ms
Alvarez. After criticising the government's contract with Global
Solutions Limited (GSL), which runs the immigration detention centres, Mr
Palmer recommended an expert group review the company's contract.
Senator Vanstone said Mr Palmer was critical of the department's policy of
'exception reporting', where instead of outlining what should be done, the
contract outlined what must not be done to make it as flexible as
possible. "But Mr Palmer's not of the view that the other
regulations surrounding detention allow that flexibility to be there,"
Senator Vanstone said.
June
29, 2005
IN his explosive report on the detention scandals, former police
commissioner Mick Palmer refers to Cornelia Rau's four months in Baxter
detention centre as "Anna's journey". Using the name she
took at the time of her admission to the South Australian holding centre,
Mr Palmer tells how her mental health deteriorated inside Baxter, yet
systemic failures allowed her to remain on the periphery of psychiatric
care even after the intervention of the state's director of mental health.
Anna arrived at Baxter, on the desert outskirts of Port Augusta, on October
6 without any documentation on her medical history. She was assessed and
screened by a contract nurse but things soon got out of hand. "She was
unco-operative during the medical induction, by crying, being confused and
upset," Mr Palmer says. An assessment by Adam Micallef, a psychologist
employed by Global Solutions Ltd, the company with the detention centre
contract, was ordered for the next day as a "precaution". Medical
papers were sent from Brisbane Women's Correctional Centre, including
discharge papers from the Princess Alexandra Hospital. Micallef decided her
problems appeared "behavioral", rather than stemming from mental
illness. "Anna's behaviour continued to be bizarre," Mr Palmer
says. Critically, Micallef wrote that Baxter was not equipped to handle
cases such as Anna's, and he recommended that she be moved to an all-female
compound such as the one in Villawood detention centre in Sydney. The
option was never pursued. Anna had been a month in Baxter when she was seen
by the centre's consulting psychiatrist, Andrew Frukacz. Despite two
attempts, he was unable to make a definitive diagnosis. He recommended she
be assessed in a mental health facility. Acting on Frukacz's advice,
attempts were made to bring in South Australia's Rural Remote Mental Health
Service to assess Anna. "The RRMHS triage team seemed unsure of their
relationship with Baxter and said they would need to clarify matters and
then get back," Mr Palmer says. "They did not do so." On
November 12, Micallef called a psychiatrist working at Glenside -- South
Australia's only dedicated mental health facility -- to discuss Anna's
"issues" with Baxter staff. The psychiatrist advised that Anna's
problems sounded behavioural but later told Mr Palmer no sense of urgency
was conveyed to him at the time. The next day the RRMHS took Anna off their
books as to be placed at its allocated beds in Glenside. But no-one at
Baxter was told. Micallef sent Anna's psychiatric assessments to Glenside
but there was not enough detail in the file to admit her to its waiting
list. On New Years's Eve last year, NSW psychiatrist Louise Newman,
Adelaide refugee lawyer Claire O'Conner and a local doctor visited 12
detainees at Baxter. After examining several of the detainees, they decided
to commit two under the state's mental health act. By January 4, Baxter
staff urged Glenside to accept and assess Anna. Three days later a rural
doctor contracted to Baxter diagnosed possible "schizoid or
schizotypal personality features and possibly schizophrenia", but
further discussion with a Glenside psychiatrist resulted in no
action. On January 24, South Australia's then director of mental
health services, Jonathon Phillips, offered to have Anna assessed at
Glenside. Department of Immigration officials in Canberra sought RRMHS
assistance to arrange this, but its director suggested she be examined at
Baxter. "It was clear the efforts made by Glenside, RRMHS and Baxter
were unco-ordinated and no one took overall responsibility for the
arrangements to admit Anna to in-patient care," Mr Palmer says. Eight
days later, after media reports of a mentally ill German woman in Baxter,
it was finally decided that Anna be assessed under the Mental Health Act.
That same day, it was revealed she was in fact Cornelia Rau.
June 5, 2005 The Advertiser
SECURITY guards have been moved on to the grounds of Glenside Mental
Health Service to watch over nine Baxter detainees receiving treatment. The
guards, employed by the Baxter Detention Centre operators, are costing an
estimated $150,000 a month. Effectively, two guards have been assigned to
each detainee. They operate out of a hired demountable hut which was
recently delivered to the grounds of the hospital. State health officials
have made it clear the guards are not welcome. Director of Mental Health,
Learne Durrington, said she has approached the Immigration Department about
the impact of the guards on other patients. "We're running a hospital
here and it needs to be managed as a hospital," Ms Durrington said.
"I've proposed that we get rid of the guards and replace them with our
own staff who are better trained in mental health care." The Baxter
guards are employees of Global Solutions Limited (GSL) subsidiary Group 4,
the security company that has the contract to operate the Baxter Detention
Centre. "We've taken additional troops from another part of our
company," the spokesman, who did not wish to be named, said. "As
a result we've got staff shortages and we're recruiting more people –
mainly for our Baxter contract." One of the guards told a visitor to
Glenside hospital the demountable was hired at a cost of $300 per day.
Figures from the Miscellaneous Workers Union show the salary costs of the
54 daily eight-hour shifts to be more than $150,000 per month. A spokesman
for the Glenside hospital confirmed two guards were allocated for each
detainee. "That's 18 guards on three eight-hour shifts, making a total
of 54 guards on a daily basis," he said. The increase in numbers of
detainees needing mental health treatment has occurred subsequent to the
Cornelia Rau case where an Australian resident suffering psychosis was
wrongly detained in Baxter until her real identity was discovered in February
this year. Health officials have confirmed that in the year prior to the
Rau case only one person had been referred to Glenside, but now nine people
were in treatment. Glenside hospital officials are still waiting for a
response from the Commonwealth on the presence of the Group 4 guards.
Meanwhile, the legal team assisting the Rau family's submission into the
Palmer inquiry has questioned the timing of an internal Baxter memo about
the identity of a detainee. A story in the Sunday Mail of November 21,
2004, described a missing woman as 168cm tall, 58kg, with dark blonde hair,
brown eyes and a brown mole on her left cheek. It subsequently turned out
to be Cornelia Rau. It's since been revealed that an internal memo dated
November 24 raised the possibility a detainee was an Australian citizen.
Legal representatives for the Rau family will ask the Palmer Inquiry to
check if the memo was sparked by the article in the Sunday Mail.
February 9, 2005 The Age
The detention centre where mentally ill Australian Cornelia Rau was wrongly
held was not visited by a psychiatrist for at least three months last year,
documents filed in Adelaide's Federal Court suggest. South Australian Legal
Services Commission lawyer Claire O'Connor claimed in documents that Group 4
Falck, the company that runs Australia's detention centres, and the
Department of Immigration had breached their duty of care by failing to
provide adequate psychiatric care for three mentally ill Iranian men at the
Baxter detention centre. Outside the court, she said there were parallels
with the Rau case. "Cornelia was sick and wasn't treated, my clients
are sick and they are not being treated," Ms O'Connor said. "She
is no different to people in there." In documents supporting her attempt
to get urgent psychiatric treatment for the men, Ms O'Connor said the
centre's suicide and self-harm unit did not employ a psychiatrist. "It
is believed there has been no psychiatric visit . . . since about August
2004 and certainly none since November 2004," she said in an
affidavit. Ms O'Connor said the problem of the lack of psychiatric care at
Baxter was compounded by the fact that the centre itself was contributing
to the poor mental health of detainees. She said psychiatrists visited
Baxter infrequently and were forced to deal with a series of seriously ill
people in a short time. "All they can do is medicate them, they just
keep renewing the prescriptions," she said.
February 7, 2005 The Age
Only
a full judicial and public inquiry would be sufficient to establish the
facts about the detention of a mentally ill Australian woman, her sister
said today. Cornelia Rau, a 39-year-old former flight attendant who was
released from Baxter immigration detention centre last week after spending
10 months locked up, has caused a national debate over services for the
mentally ill. Her sister, Christine Rau, said an inquiry independent of the
government and open to public scrutiny was necessary to get to the bottom
of the case. Adelaide public defender John Harley, who represents mentally
ill people, said he had grave concerns for the fate of other people
suffering mental health problems imprisoned by the immigration system.
"This is not isolated at all," Mr Harley told ABC radio. "I
was informed that (Ms Rau) was in solitary confinement and that involves
her being under lights 24 hours a day (with) closed circuit television.
"She was allowed out of her room six hours a day, but in some
occasions it required four men in riot gear to remove her back into her
cell," he said.
February 7, 2005 Herald Sun
THE Federal Government will hold an inquiry into
the detention of a mentally ill Australian women at the Baxter centre for
illegal immigrants. Prime Minister John Howard yesterday said it was
regrettable Cornelia Rau was held in custody for three months in Baxter and
before that six months in a Brisbane jail. "Obviously it's . . . a
very regrettable incident," Mr Howard said. Ms Rau, a 39-year-old
former Qantas flight attendant, was released from Baxter in South Australia
on Friday. Australian Democrats leader Lyn Allison said the Government
should not be trusted to investigate its own actions. "It is bad
enough that Ms Rau was being held in an immigration detention centre,"
Senator Allison said. "But why did she spend six months in a women's
prison before that? Senator
Allison said state and federal governments had allowed prisons and
detention centres to become "the new psychiatric asylums".
February 5, 2005 The Age
A family snapshot of Cornelia Rau, detained as a suspected illegal immigrant.
A mentally ill Australian woman found by Aborigines in a remote Cape York
township has been mistakenly held in immigration detention for nearly a
year while her distressed family thought she was dead. Cornelia Rau, 39,
who suffers from schizophrenia, was last seen in March after she escaped
from the psychiatric unit of Sydney's Manly Hospital. The Immigration
Department confirmed last night that Ms Rau, who was speaking German and
some English, had been held in a Queensland women's prison until September
when she was transferred to Baxter detention centre. Ms Rau's sister, Chris
Rau, a Sydney journalist, read an article from The Age last Monday about a
mystery German-speaking woman held at Baxter, known only as
"Anna". Baxter authorities faxed her a photograph, which showed
her missing sister. "We're just relieved that she is alive,"
Chris Rau said. They were also bewildered why the department could not
establish her identity when police had her details. Ms Rau was first taken
into detention in April. She had been staying near an Aboriginal camp at
Coen, in far north Queensland. The Aborigines became concerned that she was
sick and brought her into Cairns police. A spokesman for Immigration
Minister Amanda Vanstone said the woman was handed over to the Department
of Immigration by police in April 2004. She was held in a Queensland
women's prison until September when she was transferred to Baxter. Greens senator Kerry Nettle last night
called for an inquiry into "this staggering case of mismanagement and
abuse". During her three months in Baxter, Ms Rau was kept in
isolation for a week, then in a high- security unit locked in a room on her
own for 18 hours a day, refugee advocate Pamela Curr said. She said her
sister had "been through hell". "We don't know what the
implications are going to be for her future condition or her
treatment."
December 13, 2004 The Age
The immigration department today accused refugee
advocates of inciting incidents within the Baxter detention centre by
exaggerating reports of a detainee hunger strike. Refugee support group
Rural Australians for Refugees (RAR) today said 27 Iranians within the
South Australian centre were participating in the hunger strike, now into
its second week. Among those were five men who had sewn their lips together
and three who were staging a protest on the centre's gymnasium roof, RAR
spokeswoman Kathy Verran said. She said those on the roof had been denied
water since last night, after guards stopped other detainees bringing water
to the men. Ms Verran said detainees had also reported the guards were
bouncing balls against the ceiling of the gym, underneath the detainees, to
prevent them from sleeping.
December 3, 2004 The Age
Four Sri Lankan men have been hospitalised after refusing food
for up to 10 days in a hunger strike at South Australia's Baxter detention
centre. Two of the men had also been admitted overnight earlier this week,
she said.
December 1, 2004 The Age
Eleven Sri Lankan men at the Baxter detention centre have stepped up their
hunger strike and are now refusing medication, a refugee advocate said
today. The detainees were determined to continue their hunger strike until
death, in a last bid to be granted refugee status in Australia, according
to Rural Australians for Refugees spokeswoman Mira Wroblewski. Ms
Wroblewski said other hunger strikers were angry that the pair, after their
release, had been forced to walk from the detention centre medical facility
to their compounds in pouring rain. "It (forcing them to walk in the
rain) has just strengthened their resolve.
September 20, 2004 The Age
A hunger strike, a High Court action and a direct appeal to Immigration
Minister Amanda Vanstone are among last-ditch efforts to stop the forced
return of asylum seekers to Sri Lanka. The man on hunger strike, who is 34
and was detained after his visa expired, was put into Baxter's management
unit on Thursday and forcibly fed. He resumed his hunger strike on
Saturday, Ms Wroblewski said. Eleven other Sri Lankans held at Baxter
yesterday entered the fifth day of a peaceful sit-in at the compound.
August 20, 2004 The Age
A food sample from South Australia's Baxter detention centre will be
presented to health authorities for inspection after detainees complained
they had been served a meal crawling with maggots. The Immigration
Department last week said one maggot had been found in food and an
investigation was under way. South Australian Greens MP Kris Hanna said he
would today present a sample of meat and rice to the state Environmental
Health Department for examination. Mr Hanna said the food sample was
smuggled out of Baxter following frustration among detainees about the
situation. "According to reports in the centre, the food was crawling
with live maggots," Mr Hanna said. Detainees at the Baxter centre last
week upturned rubbish bins in protest after complaining about maggots in
their food.
November
1, 2004 BBC
An investigation is being carried out at a Warwickshire prison after two
inmates finished a rooftop protest. The men came down from the roof of a
shed at Rye Hill prison near Rugby at just after 9.30pm on Saturday
evening. It is not clear what the
demonstration at the jail, which is run by Global Solutions Ltd, was about.
Inmates
of Baxter immigration detention centre took control of a compound yesterday
morning and barricaded themselves in. About 50 guards in riot gear
surrounded the compound and forced open the door. A spokesman for the
Immigration Department confirmed that there had been a disturbance at Baxter.
(The Age, March 18, 2004)
Campsfield
Immigration Removal Centre, Oxford, England
April 3, 2007 The Guardian
A private prison was criticised by its staff and a judge yesterday
following the collapse of a manslaughter trial over the death of a prisoner
on suicide watch. Four officers from Rye Hill prison, near Rugby, run by
Global Solutions Ltd, were cleared of all charges in connection with the
death of Michael Bailey, from Birmingham, who was serving a four year
sentence for cocaine dealing. He was found in March 2005 hanged by his
shoelace from the door to his cell in the segregation block. Daniel
Daymond, 23, of Rugby, Paul Smith, 39, of Warrington, and Samantha Prime,
29, also of Rugby, were acquitted at Northampton crown court of charges of
manslaughter by gross negligence in connection with Bailey's death. Ben
King, 21, of Southbrook, Daventry, along with Mr Daymond, was cleared of
perverting the course of justice by doctoring log books for suicide
watches. All were cleared on the direction of the judge, Mr Justice
Grigson. He said: "No one who has heard the evidence in this court can
have any doubt that the death of Michael Bailey was a tragedy, not least
because it was avoidable." Outside the court Bailey's mother,
Caroline, said: "This case clearly shows there were failures in Rye
Hill prison and GSL ... I hope the outcome of this case brings
changes." Paul Smith, manager of the segregation unit where Mr Bailey
killed himself, resigned from GSL before the court case. He said after his
acquittal. "Straight from the start I had expressed concern about the
level of support and training. I told senior management about it and they
didn't do anything." In a statement released through his solicitor, Mr
Daymond said: "[Michael Bailey's] death was a tragedy that was wholly
avoidable. I hope that today's decision will focus attention on the way in
which Rye Hill Prison is run." A spokesman for GSL said: "This
whole matter will be looked at very carefully. Self-harm is an issue that
prisons work very hard to avoid." The jail was the subject of
criticism by the chief inspector of prisons, Anne Owers, who found the
staff were inexperienced.
July 22, 2006 The Independent
A Kurdish teenager killed himself after spending more than four months
in an immigration detention centre, an inquest has heard. Ramazan Kumluca,
18, is the youngest asylum-seeker to have committed suicide while facing
deportation from Britain. Campaign groups yesterday called for the closure
of all detention centres, comparing them to Victorian workhouses. Mr
Kumluca is one of more than 30 asylum-seekers who have killed themselves in
the past five years after being told their applications had failed. He had
travelled from his home in Turkey to Italy and then on to Britain where he
claimed asylum last year, saying that his life was in danger over a £20,000
debt owed by his father. He also claimed that if he was sent back to Italy
(under rules that asylum must be claimed in the first safe country reached)
he was at risk of exploitation. Mr Kumluca was refused asylum and denied
bail because there were fears he would not report back for deportation. He
was sent to Campsfield House in Oxfordshire, an immigration removal centre
that holds around 100 men at any time. The average stay for detainees at
the centre is 14 days, but because the teenager was fighting his
deportation order he was held for four and a half months. An inquest at
Oxford Old Assizes heard he had been plunged into despair during his
incarceration and had complained of insomnia, headaches and anxiety. A
fellow inmate, Abdulwase Kamali, told the court Mr Kumluca had appeared
"sad" the day before he killed himself. He said: "Ramazan
said he had been told by immigration he would be sent back to Italy, and he
said if he was sent back to Italy he would be used in sex films. He said he
would slash himself or hang himself." On 27 June last year, Mr Kamali
and other Muslim detainees alerted warders after calling Mr Kumluca for
morning prayers and finding his door would not open. He was found hanging from
the door closing mechanism. After investigating his death, a Prison and
Probation ombudsman cleared staff of any wrongdoing. The jury returned a
verdict of suicide. Outside the court, Bob Hughes, of the pressure group
Campaign to Close Campsfield, said: "Here we have an institution full
of people being driven deliberately to despair by government policy."
"He added: "We believe these people should be allowed to get on
with their own lives. Centres like Campsfield are a huge national scandal
and shame. Campsfield House has been a removal centre since 1993 and is
privately run by the company Global Solutions Limited. In 2002, the then
Home Secretary David Blunkett pledged that the centre would be closed, but
a year later it was decided to keep it open and expand the number of
places. Since 2000, at least 25 asylum-seekers have killed themselves while
living in the community after being told they would be deported. Mr Kumluca
was the seventh to have committed suicide in a detention centre. More than
2,600 adults and children are being held in detention centres prior to
deportation. In January this year another asylum-seeker Bereket Yohannes,
from Eritrea, was found hanging at Harmondsworth Removal Centre. An inquest
will be held into his death.
June 17, 2006 Indy Media
On Monday 12th of this week a Somalian man went onto a roof at
Campsfield; he had been detained for four months (probably illegally, since
the government cannot deport people to Somalia) and took a rope and a
plastic bag with him. GEO, the new management at Campsfield, asked the
police to leave and said they would deal with the matter themselves; we do
not know whether they used violence against the Somalian detainee; he has
been removed from Campsfield, no doubt to somewhere even worse as is usual
in these cases. There have been 12 suicides in immigration detention, and
several hundred attempted suicides and cases of self harm requiring medical
treatment. GSL lost the contract to run Campsfield to GEO (Global Expertise
on Outsourcing), presumably on cost grounds. GEO took over at the beginning
of the month. They have changed their name from Wackenhut, and have a
discreditable history of running penal institutions in the USA and
Australia. GSL's manager, Andy Clark, who had been more willing than his
predecessors to allow volunteers and education classes in Campsfield,
decided he could not work with GEO; at least two of the people who ran
education classes and workshops have been sacked or left, and GEO
apparently intends to provide much reduced hours of education (as required
under the contract), run by its own officers. But of course the most
serious problem is not the conditions inside the centre, but the fact that
people are detained there who have committed no crime, been charged or
suspected of no crime, with no judicial process and no time limit, often
with no access to lawyers, and always with great uncertainty about what is
happening to them or about to happen to them.
May 23, 2001
The global private security firm Group 4, is an "Investor in
People." This may come as a surprise. For since Campsfield
opened, almost unnoticed, in the bleary period just before Christmas in
1993, this improvised brick compound has become to many the unacceptable
face of the British government's asylum system. Within weeks, the
country's first specialized facility for confining them while their cases
were decided was provoking hunger strikes. Within months, detainees
were climbing on to its roofs to protest at the conditions. Still in
its first year of operation, there was a mass escape over its 20ft
perimeter fence, and a "disturbance" - involving fires and
smashed furniture - which resulted in the deployment of riot police and
injuries to detainees, who needed several ambulances and hospital treatment.
Official reports on Campsfield in 1995 and 1998 by two different chief
inspectors of prisons found fear, boredom and stress among inmates.
Among the Group 4 staff, the inspections found inexperience, poor pay and
exhausting shift work. This cycle of protest and disorder and
repressive countermeasures continued unabated during the late 1990s.
(Guardian Newspapers)
May 14, 2002
As many as 15 asylum seeker accomadation centres could be built across the
UK despite an angry response from residents in the locations chosen for the
three pilot "villages". The government plans to build the
centres at Throckmorton, near Pershore on Worcestershire, RAF Newton, in
Nottinghamshire, and at Bicester, Oxfordshire. More than 3,000
villagers have signed a petition objecting to a development in their
area. Some local people are anxious about plans to house large
numbers of asylum seekers near them, particularly following the riot and
fire which destroyed the $100m Yari's Wood centre. Steve Mitchell,
chairman of Pinvin Parish Council, promised to fight the plans "every
step of the way". (BBC News)
Dover Asylum Screening Centre, London City Airport
September 12, 2005 BBC
Immigration detainees have been forced to sleep on tables or plastic chairs
because of sub-standard provisions, the prisons watchdog has revealed.
Facilities at Gatwick Airport, London City Airport and Dover Asylum Centre
were inappropriate for overnight stays, the chief inspector of prisons
said. City Airport was "unsuitable" for holding children, the
report said. The government said it takes detainees' welfare seriously but
that facilities may need independent monitoring. Holding centres at ports
and airports hold foreign travellers whose permission to be in the country
needs to be examined by immigration officers. But none of the centres
inspected, all run by private company GSL UK Limited, had adequate child
protection arrangements, according to the report. Inspectors found
detainees were sleeping in inadequate conditions, there were no regular
healthcare visits and suicide-prevention measures were not good enough.
Global Solutions, UK
December
18, 2007 Yahoo Business Wire
Cognetas, an independent mid-market pan-European private equity firm
specialising in complex deals, today announces the sale of Global Solutions
(GSL) for £355 million to G4S. The sale, subject to EU merger clearance and
South African competition commission clearance, is expected to complete in
2008. GSL is a leading provider of outsourced support services to public
authorities and corporate organisations worldwide. Services are typically
provided under long-term contracts (5 to 30 years) either directly to the
end customer or through joint ventures and Public Private Partnerships with
government and corporates. GSL has operations in the UK, South Africa and
Australia. Its service offering covers three areas: Custodial services,
including prison management, escorting, immigration, custody and training;
Public Services, for example healthcare, education and Local Authority
services; and Business services, comprising utilities, office accommodation
and other managed services. Cognetas backed the original MBO of GSL in 2004
in a £207 million (€309 million) transaction. At the time, Cognetas
underwrote equity and debt to facilitate certainty for the vendor with an
initial commitment of £105 million (€158 million) on behalf of Cognetas
Fund I. This was reduced within two months to £54 million (€81 million) by
introducing senior debt. The balance of the funding was provided by
Englefield Capital on behalf of the Englefield Funds. Since then Cognetas
has supported management in the implementation of a growth plan that has
seen revenues increase from £291 million in 2004 to over £400 million in
2007 through organic growth, in fill acquisition and expansion of services
in its sectors over three continents with the number of staff employed
increasing by over 25% to more than 9,500. Nigel McConnell, Managing
Partner of Cognetas commented: “We are delighted to be associated with the
success of GSL over the past three years and we are pleased to see that the
dynamic management team has built the business into a worldwide quality
provider of outsourced services. We leave the business on extremely sound
and robust grounds which will help sustain its continued growth. I am
confident that being part of a larger global business like G4S will take
this business forward to a new level and I wish them well”.
November 29, 2007 The Telegraph
Group4Securicor is in talks to buy Global Solutions, a company it used to
own, for around £350m. Earlier this year, private equity firm Cognetas
appointed investment bank UBS to carry out a strategic review of Global
Solutions, which runs a number of Britain's prisons and detention centres.
However, the credit crunch forced Cognetas to put the review of Global
Solutions on hold. Since then, the company has received a number of
approaches, including one from Group4Securicor. Cognetas bought Global
Solutions, which also manages hospitals, schools and tourist offices, from
Danish security firm Group 4 Falk for about £200m three years ago.
Group4Securicor is now understood to be carrying out due diligence on the
business. However, it is not the only company bidding. Sources said US
group GEO and several private equity firms have also made approaches for
the company. Global Solutions has previously come under the spotlight for
the way it runs its prisons and detention centres, following the
Government's privatisation of the sector. Earlier this year, there was a
Panorama investigation by an undercover BBC reporter, who worked as a
custody officer, in one of Global Solutions' prisons at Rye Hill. None of
the parties involved would comment.
August 26, 2007 The Observer
A possible sale or flotation of Global Solutions, which runs a number of
Britain's prisons and detention centres, has been shelved by private equity
owner Cognetas, according to City sources. UBS, the investment bank that
was appointed last month to undertake a strategic review of the prisons
group, is understood to have advised Cognetas against a move while global
credit and stock markets are still on tenterhooks. Cognetas bought Global
Solutions, which also manages hospitals, schools and tourist offices, from
Danish security firm Group 4 Falk for about £200m three years ago. The company
has stoked occasional controversy, most recently after the BBC's Panorama
programme looked into the way Global Solutions ran Rye Hill prison, near
Rugby, Warwickshire. The jail was the subject of a report by the chief
inspector of prisons, Anne Owers, who found the staff were inexperienced.
There has also been criticism of the way it runs asylum centres - last
year, a prisons inspectorate inquiry was ordered into Yarl's Wood, an
immigration removal centre in Bedfordshire that was formerly run by Global.
June 14, 2007 The Telegraph
Global Solutions, a company that runs some of Britain's prisons and
detention centres, may be about to change hands for around £400m. Private
equity firm Cognetas, which owns Global Solutions, has appointed investment
bank UBS to carry out a strategic review of the business, according to
sources familiar with the matter. It is understood that the review is
likely to examine a float, sale, refinancing and possible future
acquisition for the business. Sources stressed that the strategic review
might not necessarily lead to an imminent sale of Global Solutions, which
Cognetas bought in 2004 from Danish security firm Group 4 Falck for around
£207m. The move comes as Global Solutions - which also builds and manages
hospitals, schools and tourist offices for several public organisations
around the world - has come under the public spotlight for the way it runs
its prisons and detention centres, following the Government's privatisation
of the sector. Earlier this year, there was a Panorama investigation by an
undercover BBC reporter, who worked as a custody officer, in one of Global
Solutions' prisons at Rye Hill. Global Solutions' detention centres for
asylum seekers have also been criticised. Last year, a prison inspectorate
inquiry was ordered after two refugees had to go to hospital following
prolonged detention in Yarl's Wood, an immigration removal centre formerly
run by Global Solutions. Cognetas declined to comment.
March 19, 2006 The Age
FOUR prison officers have been sacked and two more counselled in the
wake of the so-called "Sausagegate" scandal, which hurt and
humiliated a vulnerable inmate of the privately owned and run Port Phillip
Prison. The Bracks Government has put GSL Australia, operator of the
Laverton maximum-security complex, on notice over a spate of alarming
incidents. The prisoner was tricked into believing he was leaving the jail,
coerced into inserting a sausage in his body, then strip-searched by
officers "in" on the "joke". The dismissed officers
were corrections supervisor Trevor Spearman, who allegedly tried to cover
up the incident, and corrections officer Steven Harmat, who allegedly
played the leading role, and corrections officers Russell Davies and
Appudurai Natkunarajah, who joined the prank. Until last week, they had
been suspended for six to nine months on full pay following the report of
the investigation by GSL's security manager, Jim Keegan, revealed
exclusively in The Sunday Age last week. Anti-private prison activist
Charandev Singh said the report shows that more needs to be done to address
serious systemic problems in the prison. His concern is backed by Vanessa
Westcott, daughter of a man who died of an asthma attack at the prison in
November after a help button he pressed apparently did not work. Ms
Westcott said the prison was leaving people like her father, remanded
alleged offender Ian Westcott, 55, in cells not monitored between 8pm and
8am. His death, after he reportedly left a note saying he had called for
help, is the subject of three inquiries. Ms Westcott, a University of
Melbourne doctoral student researching in outback Western Australia, wants
to prevent such tragedies occurring. Her solicitor, Fitzroy Legal Service's
Stan Winford, said not enough had been done to implement the findings of
inquests conducted into deaths at the prison in the late 1990s. GSL was
recently given a penalty of almost $200,000 over "Sausagegate",
which happened last May. The penalty appears to have included other
incidents. In another embarrassment this week, the company's transport
manager, Rod St George, was dressed down by Judge John Nixon in Geelong
County Court over a bungle that left a prisoner late for court and without
food or water for almost seven hours. The problems come at an awkward time
for GSL and the Bracks Government, which is in the midst of a scheduled
review of GSL's contract. Minister for Corrections, Tim Holding told The
Sunday Age: "The Government will not accept failure in the management
of any of our prisons." Under the terms of its 20-year contract, begun
in 1997, GSL was to face a review after five years, then every three years.
If renewed, the second of its three-year terms would begin on July 1. Mr
Singh, a human rights advocate with Brimbank Melton Community Legal Centre,
said the penalty faced by GSL was "tokenistic" compared to its
annual revenue of $147 million. Police have investigated
"Sausagegate" and have forwarded their investigation to the
Director of Public Prosecutions.
March 12 2006 The Age
THE private company running Port Phillip Prison, GSL Australia, has
been fined almost $200,000 and four officers have been suspended over a
practical joke that humiliated and hurt a vulnerable prisoner last year.
Known in prison circles as "Sausagegate", the incident involved
the prisoner being coerced into hiding a package of supposed contraband
inside his body and then being strip-searched by officers who were in on
the "joke". A scathing internal GSL report on the case, obtained
by The Sunday Age, reveals that the prisoner rejected efforts to make him
cover up the incident, which left him angry, humiliated and physically
hurt. The scandal is likely to revive debate over the use of private
companies to run prisons and immigration detention centres. Last year GSL
was fined almost $500,000 by federal authorities over mistreatment of
immigration detainees, and an independent review has decided against an
automatic extension of its contract to run immigration detention centres.
Police who investigated the latest case have now referred files to the
Director of Public Prosecutions. Victorian Corrections Commissioner Kelvin
Anderson said the matter had "been taken extremely seriously",
resulting in what he termed a "significant financial penalty"
under its contract. The Sunday Age believes that the sum is close to
$200,000.
August 16, 2005 BBC
Facilities at four short-term immigrant holding centres have been condemned
as "inadequate" by the prisons watchdog. Dover Asylum Screening
Centre, a centre at London City Airport and two at Gatwick Airport are not
suitable for overnight stays, its report says. Detainees were found to have
slept on tables or plastic chairs, it adds. Immigrants are only supposed to
be detained for a few hours, but Chief Inspector of Prisons Anne Owers said
people were sometimes held overnight, and occasionally for up to 36 hours.
Ms Owers said none of the centres had adequate child protection
arrangements. A spokesman for GSL UK Limited, which was in charge of the
centres at the time of the inspections, said it was inappropriate to
comment as the company no longer ran them. The centres have since been
taken over by Group 4 Securicor.
July
9, 2005
Here is a story about your taxes at work. It concerns a company called GSL
(Australia) Pty Ltd, previously known as Group 4 Correction Services, a
wholly owned subsidiary of the British security company Group 4 Securitas,
whose core business includes running prisons. GSL's parent has merged twice
in the past five years. The second time was a year ago, with a
British-based multinational called Securicor to create "one of the
largest security companies in the world, with 340,000 employees in 108
countries", according to GSL's website. On July 13, 2004, GSL
was sold, for $500 million, as a stand-alone company to "two of
Europe's leading private equity companies, Englefield Capital and Electra
Partners Europe". The GSL website says GSL has 8000 employees
globally, including 1064 in Australia. A year earlier, on August 27,
2003, GSL signed a contract with the Australian Government's Department of
Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs to take over the
operation of all its mainland "immigration detention facilities".
The contract runs for four years, with a government option for another three
years. The cost to taxpayers: $90 million a year. That is, $90
million "not including overheads and contract administration",
according to the Auditor-General, whose office has just investigated the
Immigration Department's management of the GSL contract. What do taxpayers
get for their $90 million? Well, the first thing they get is a bill
for another $30 million, which is what the Audit Office found it now costs
the department in annual overheads to administer the contract. These costs
have gone up at the same time as the number of detainees has gone down. In
2003-04 administration costs totalled $20 million, while in the year just
ended June 30 they were "projected to reach $30 million".
The number of detainees, as at June 29, was 844. Do your sums on a total
cost of $120 million and you'll find the detention of each and every
detainee cost taxpayers an average $142,000 throughout 2004-05. Perhaps
this is why GSL Australia's managing director, Peter Olszak, is quoted on
the company website as "expressing confidence 'we will continue to go
from strength to strength'." The Audit Office, in its
report released this week, says the Immigration Department stated it funded
$120.5 million in 2004-05 to provide "lawful, appropriate, humane and
efficient detention of unlawful non-citizens". It also found the
department's "internal monitoring and reporting arrangements"
neither defined nor measured "lawful, appropriate, humane or efficient
detention". The report's overall conclusion, in part: "The
contract does not establish clear expectations for the level and quality of
services delivered, mechanisms to protect the Commonwealth's interests are
not clear, and there is insufficient information about the quality of
services and their costs to allow a value-for-money calculation."
All of which means what? Labor's Sharon Grierson, deputy chairwoman
of Parliament's public accounts and audit committee, was the only MP to
respond to the Audit Office report. Grierson said in a statement on
Thursday: "The department has no idea what is going on inside
detention centres. The last thing we should do is assume anything about
these centres, given the culture of complacency and the lack of proper
review. The ANAO report makes it clear there is simply no way of knowing
whether the Commonwealth is receiving value for money or, more importantly,
whether the needs of detainees are being met. The department simply shuts
its eyes and hopes for the best. DIMIA has absolutely no idea if (or to
what extent) it is insured for incidents at detention centres, why the cost
of detention is rising even while the number of detainees is falling, or
even what assets and equipment it owns in these centres." A lot
of "don't knows" for $120 million.
April 9, 2005 The Guardian
Security firms involved in the deportation of failed asylum seekers are
facing more and more claims of intimidation and assault. Group 4/Global
Solutions Ltd (GSL) topped the league table of complaints by asylum seekers
and their lawyers. Campaigners who studied 35 complaints now being pursued
by lawyers revealed GSL was involved in 30% of cases. GSL, which deals with
by far the majority of deportees in Britain, recently won a 10-year Home
Office contract to run Bicester Accommodation Centre for asylum seekers.
The firm was criticised last month after the broadcast of the BBC
documentary Asylum Undercover, which contained claims of abuse by GSL
guards. Most of the alleged assaults analysed involve incidents on the way
to or at airports. Most concern incidents resulting in cuts, bruises and
swelling, although deportees have complained of head injuries, damaged
nerves, and sexual assault.
March 31, 2005 IRR News
Recent unannounced inspections of centres used to hold asylum seekers in
transit to detention centres and to ports for deportation have found that
no centre meets the minimum requirements in relation to child protection.
Officials carried out their first (unannounced) inspections into 'holding'
centres for asylum seekers between June and October 2004. The holding
centres, all run by private company GSL Ltd, (formerly Group 4) were:
Communications House (Old Street, London), Lunar House (Croydon), Electric
House (Croydon) and Dallas Court (Manchester). The report states that 'all
four holding centres had inadequate provision for childcare and child
protection. None had a child protection policy in place, and staff likely
to be in contact with children had not undergone enhanced Criminal Records
Bureau (CRB) checks.' At Lunar House the inspection team reported that they
'spoke to one woman detainee with a two-year-old child during the
mid-afternoon. She and the child had been in other areas of the building
since 8am that morning. Neither she nor her child had been offered anything
to eat during that time and had to wait for relocation to a residential
centre that evening.' They found that this was 'unacceptable'. At Dallas
Court, the team found that 'a weekend shift recently complained when they
discovered a young woman in the holding room who had miscarried a few days
previously. She had been collected from a hospital following psychiatric
referral, had not eaten for three days and had to be helped to and from the
van. She was subject to a live F2052SH self-harm monitoring form because
she kept asking for her baby and said she wanted to die. Having been
delivered to the holding room in the morning, she was not due to be
collected by another vehicle until more than six hours later.' For the
first time it emerged that other private contractors (unnamed in this
report) are being used to move asylum seekers - though GSL Ltd remains
responsible for the four holding centres inspected here. The inspection
teams also found a worrying 'absence of operational or independent
oversight, compared to other immigration detention facilities. There was no
Independent Monitoring Board, and no on-site monitor to provide daily
oversight of service provision, as there is in immigration removal centres
(IRCs). Senior Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND) staff visited
only occasionally, and, with the exception of Dallas Court, had little
involvement with the centres.'
MANCHESTER'S new £30m court is at the
centre of a new storm after dozens of prisoners were hours late arriving
from their cells. Furious lawyers sat around for up to three hours
yesterday waiting for their clients to arrive from police stations,
including Bootle Street less than a mile away. GSL, the private
security firm that ferries prisoners to the court, blamed "logistical problems"
and has apologised to court authorities. It is the latest in a string
of problems at the court since it opened in May. Around 40
people were due to be moved from holding cells in Manchester to the court
before 10am yesterday, in time for morning hearings. Less than half
were delivered on time and more were dropped off at 11am and 11.45am.
Lawyers were still waiting for at least eight clients at 12.30pm. GSL, part
of Group 4, said the final transfer was made at 12.45pm. Court bosses
have already threatened to fine GSL for previous failures to get prisoners
into court on time. (Manchester Online, August 31, 2004)
HM Prison Altcourse, UK
July 13, 2005
An inquiry has been launched after two men were found hanged in their cells
at a prison in Liverpool. Lee Jason Crabtree, 32, from Llandudno, Conwy,
was found dead on Monday at HM Prison Altcourse. David Oakes, 25, from
Warrington, Cheshire, was found on Tuesday. The two deaths are not thought
to be linked. The privately-run jail has recently been praised by prison
inspectors for its good environment and work with mentally ill inmates. But
the report, by the Chief Inspector of Prisons Anne Owers, also highlighted
bullying among prisoners and criticised procedures for inmates' first night
in jail.
Maribyrnoug Detention Centre, New South
Wales
December
16, 2008 The Age
THREE detainees at Maribyrnong Detention Centre pulled off brazen
escapes at the weekend, raising questions about immigration security. The
latest escapes come less than two months after a Vietnamese detainee posed
as a visitor and walked straight past security guards. Opposition
immigration spokeswoman Sharman Stone called on detention centre operator
GSL to review security, after two Vietnamese men scaled a five-metre fence
at the rear of the detention centre at lunchtime on Saturday and
disappeared. The following night, Turkish man Mustafa Bectis managed to
shrug off his two escorts at the emergency department of the Western
General Hospital in Footscray, where he was being treated for a cut arm.
"If someone has just climbed over the back fence, GSL does need to
very urgently review its security," Ms Stone said. "If another
person is being escorted to hospital and managed to escape then certainly
they've got to take a lot more care." Mr Bectis, who was not
handcuffed or shackled, raced through a door and vanished. The two escapes
are believed to have been assisted by people from the outside, with
detainees able to communicate using email and mobile phones. Police were
immediately called in both instances by GSL, but have been unable to trace
the absconders. Ms Stone also criticised the decision not to make the
escapes public, saying that residents who lived near the detention centre
could have helped the police. "Australia is such a multicultural place,
it is very easy for anyone to blend into the background — we don't require
a showing of papers at borders between states," she said. She also
said GSL may need to review its mobile phone policy where a detainee had a
high flight risk. In the past three years, 20 detainees have escaped while
at Maribyrnong, Villawood and Perth detention centres, mostly while being
escorted to court or on social outings. Four escapes have been from
Maribyrnong this year, compared with just two from Villawood and one from Perth.
The weekend shemozzle has come at a sensitive time for GSL, which hopes its
contract will be renewed after the former government re-tendered all
detention services. A decision is expected to be announced in the first
half of next year. The Government is already under pressure over its border
protection policy, with the Opposition claiming the scrapping of temporary
protection visas has made Australia a "soft target" for people
smugglers. An Immigration Department spokesman said GSL would review security
arrangements at Maribyrnong. "It is the responsibility of the
detention services provider to ensure appropriate security is maintained at
all times," he said. But he said email and mobile phone access were a
"fundamental right" for people in immigration detention, and
their use would not form part of the review. GSL's director of public
affairs, Tim Hall, said escapes were a matter of great concern. "We
constantly strive to balance the needs of clients who are being held in
administrative detention, not imprisonment, against our obligation to
ensure that they are securely detained," he said.
Oakington Asylum Reception Center, Cambridgeshire
December
12, 2008 The Guardian
Conditions have deteriorated significantly at Oakington immigration
removal centre in Cambridgeshire, with half the detainees saying they feel
unsafe and staff increasingly using force, according to the chief inspector
of prisons. A report by Anne Owers, published today, says that Oakington,
which had been a flagship "fast-track" asylum centre, has lost
direction and purpose and is not performing well, especially in the areas
of safety and respect. The relationships between the private security staff
running the centre and the 328 detainees have deteriorated to the extent
that they are significantly worse than at any other removal centre. The
chief inspector says the management and staff take so little interest in
individual detainees that they were unaware of the fact that they had been
holding one Chinese man for nearly two years. Owers says that Oakington has
changed considerably since it was the fast-track processing centre and now
holds only men, some for long periods, and all facing the possibility of
deportation. The threat of closure has been hanging over the centre for the
past four years, which means many of the staff are temporary. "None of
this makes for a stable, secure and positive environment," says the
inspection report. "Half the detainees, compared with a third last
time [2005], said that they had felt unsafe. Only 60%, compared with 89%
last time, and 94% in 2004, said that most staff treated them with respect.
These are significant and troubling slippages." One source of fear is
the use of poorly supervised dormitory accommodation, with failed asylum
seekers locked up with foreign national prisoners also facing deportation.
The use of force to control detainees has also increased at the centre -
which is run by the private security company Global Solutions Ltd - from 53
incidents last year to 34 in the first six months of this year. The number
of detainees put on segregation for breaching rules has also risen, from
328 times in the whole of 2007 to 220 in the first six months of this year.
"This was a disappointing inspection of an establishment which seemed
to have lost direction and purpose," Owers says, adding that the UK
Border Agency should quickly clarify Oakington's future. The agency said it
would consider the report's recommendations. "We take any concerns
about the welfare of our detainees extremely seriously. Our removal centres
play a vital role in enforcing immigration rules and we are determined to
make sure they are well run, safe and secure."
November 14, 2006 Cambridge Evening News
A report by Anne Owers, Chief Inspector of Prisons, found bosses had
failed to implement improvements recommended following an earlier
inspection in several key areas designed to improve the welfare of
detainees. Highlighting her concerns, she warned the centre would have to
take note of its shortcomings if, as is planned, it stays open for another
three years. She said: "Oakington remains a reasonably safe
environment. It was, however, disappointing several of our recommendations
on suicide and self-harm had not been implemented, and that anti-bullying
procedures were weak. "This will be of increased importance if the
centre remains in operation, and holds men who are detained for longer
periods, with no on-site access to independent legal advice or to the
immigration service." The centre was also rapped for failing to
improve its race relations procedures, although staff were not accused of
being racist towards detainees. Ms Owers said: "We were extremely
disappointed to find there to be insufficient attention to basic protective
race relations structures, such as effective ethnic monitoring procedures.
"There can be no excuse for failing to put in place effective
mechanisms to detect and prevent racial discrimination." The lack of
suitable activities and welfare support for detainees was also criticised,
and Ms Owers said the centre was in a period of transition. A CULTURE of
bullying and abuse was exposed by an undercover investigation at Oakington
Reception Centre. Global Solutions Ltd (GSL), which runs the centre,
launched an investigation after an undercover reporter spent three months
working there, filming abuse that went on. One member of staff, Jason
Martin, known to colleagues at Oakington as Wolfie, was filmed telling a
detainee whose mental well-being was reportedly causing concern: “Get out
of ******* bed before I do you some damage.” Martin, right, then tipped him
out of bed after saying: “You just don’t want to do it because I’m white.
And you think you’re not going to do anything because a white person tells
you what to do. Well I’m afraid you’re wrong. My great- grandfather shot
your great-grandfather and nicked his ******* country off you for 200
years. “I’m not to be ****** about with. Personally I don’t go with this
Gandhi ****. Passive resistance means **** all to me.” GSL said Mr Martin
subsequently moved on to a job as a prison custody officer for a private
company.
December 15, 2005 Virgin.net
New safeguards are to be introduced after evidence of racism was uncovered
at an asylum seeker detention centre. The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman
will act as an independent monitor of complaints from October next year,
ministers said. The ombudsman, currently Stephen Shaw, investigated
Oakington fast-track detention centre in Cambridgeshire earlier this year
after a BBC documentary exposed allegations of racism and mistreatment.
"The behaviour of some of those working for the contractor company, as
seen in the BBC documentary and confirmed by Stephen Shaw's report, was
unacceptable." Oakington, which is already marked for closure by the
end of next year, is run by the private company Global Solutions Ltd.
Oakington officers boasted of hitting detainees and made racist comments
while a BBC researcher was working undercover at the Cambridgeshire centre.
March 4, 2005 Interactive Investor
The government asked the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman to investigate
allegations of abuse at the Oakington immigrant detention centre, said Home
Office Minister Des Browne. The independent probe was established after a
BBC television documentary showed staff at the centre racially and physically
abusing asylum seekers. Ombudsman Stephen Shaw's remit will be to
investigate the allegations made in the documentary and review the centre's
own probe into the affair, Browne said. Oakington is run by Global
Solutions Ltd. GSL was formed after Group 4 Falck merged with with
Securicor in 2004. Electra Partners Europe and Englefield Capital each took
50 pct stakes in GSL last July, according to GSL's website.
March 3, 2005 Financial Times
A BBC film showing asylum seekers being assaulted, racially abused and
sexually humiliated by guards has prompted demands for a public debate into
how government policy is fuelling human rights abuses and miscarriages of
justice. The film, shown last night, has generated adverse publicity for
Global Solutions, one of the government's largest contractors, which runs
Oakington detention centre near Cambridge and the in-country escorting
contract featured in the undercover documentary. The Home Office said it
was taking the matter "extremely seriously" and would decide on
what further action to take once it had all the facts. GSL was formed in
2004, when Group 4 Falck of Denmark merged with Securicor, its UK rival. It
inherited a number of public-private partnership contracts, from healthcare
and schools to the construction and servicing of the new GCHQ, one of the
largest buildings developed under the private finance initiative. What has
shocked human rights and refugee groups is that Oakington had been
considered one of the better-run and more humane detention centres. The documentary
has fuelled concerns that the abuses at Oakington are but the symptoms of a
wider malaise across the system that has long generated protests to the
Home Office from human rights lawyers.
November 9, 2004 The Guardian
Children detained in the Oakington asylum reception centre in
Cambridgeshire are not being cared for properly, with some found to be
suffering distress, according to the chief inspector of prisons. Anne Owers
says in a report published today that when she visited the privately run centre
she found that 41 children were being detained, some for weeks. The chief
inspector's report also discloses that the agreed procedures for detaining
the children of asylum seekers had not been followed. "The centre made
conscientious attempts to identify and support children at risk of harm,
but residential staff lacked the necessary qualifications or support from
social services," she says.
Port
Phillip Prison, Australia
September
11, 2008 The Age
COMPLAINTS about Victoria's private prisons have risen up to fourfold
in the past two years, fuelling concerns by a public sector watchdog about
the state's growing reliance on business to provide government services.
State Ombudsman George Brouwer yesterday tabled his 2007-08 annual report,
vowing to shine a light on the more murky aspects of public-private
partnerships and outsourcing and noting the "high risk" that
comes with the blurring of the private and public sectors. In the report,
Mr Brouwer highlights a "growing interdependency" between
government and business, which brings "a high potential for conflict
situations and confusion about the ethical standards required". While
issues of conflicts of interest, poor customer service and failure to fulfil
legal requirements remain his core work, the Ombudsman says public-private
contracts and public sector compliance with the new human rights charter
are two new areas of focus. The 2008 report also shows: ■Overall
complaints were up 13% to 16,344 on the previous year. ■Complaints
about freedom of information rose by 16%. ■Whistleblower disclosures
more than doubled. ■The largest single source (29%) of complaints
related to the Justice Department. ■Local government made up 23% of
complaints and the Department of Human Services 19%. Deputy Ombudsman John
Taylor said his office was concerned that private sector involvement in
services traditionally supplied by government may lead to the erosion of
citizens' rights. He pointed to private prisons, noting 400% and 100%
increases in complaints respectively about Port Phillip prison (rising to
443) and Fulham prison (129) since the 2006 annual report. While rising
complaint figures are partly explained by the installation of phones for
inmates, Mr Taylor described the increases as "disproportionately
high". The emphasis on private contracting is a wake-up call for a
state increasingly reliant on PPPs for services ranging from jails to water
and now schools. Mr Taylor said the Ombudsman's office would make a point
of scrutinising deals with business. "Every time there is a major
contract or outsourcing of what traditionally has been a government
function we have an interest; we want to make sure that the normal rights
of a citizen to complain are retained and that the Government doesn't
legislate away the right of an individual to complain to the
Ombudsman." Individual agencies with the most complaints were VicRoads
and Port Phillip Prison. ■The Government is expected to table
legislation tomorrow to toughen rules and guidelines for councillors,
including clarifying confusing laws on conflicts of interest.
August 5, 2007 The Ages
A PRISONER who was allegedly hurt and humiliated by an obscene
practical joke, known in prison circles as "Sausagegate", is
suing the private operator of Port Phillip Prison at Laverton. Kirk Steven
Ardern, 27, has lodged a writ in the County Court seeking damages for
physical and psychological injuries suffered during the incident on May 22,
2005. The Sunday Age reported exclusively in March last year that private
operator GSL Australia had been fined almost $200,000 by Corrections
Victoria over the matter and other breaches. Following the Sunday Age
report, based on a leaked copy of an internal investigation, four prison
officers who were suspended on full pay for six to nine months over the
incident were sacked, and two others were counselled. The investigator's
report said Ardern was made to believe he was going out of the prison to
buy doughnuts, then coerced into secreting what he was told was a package
of contraband drugs and cash wrapped in cling-wrap inside his rectum. But
he had been tricked, and was angered and humiliated after the package, a
meat sausage, was revealed during a strip-search and a subsequent mock
interrogation. In the writ, filed by solicitors Arnold Thomas and Becker,
the statement of claim says a plan was hatched and carried out against
Ardern by several prison officers, along with several prisoners and a
catering employee. It names the prison officers as Stephen Harmat, Russell
Davies and Appurdural Natkunarajah. A fourth officer was unnamed. The
catering employee is cited as someone named Scott, and the prisoners as
Dave Eddington, "Chris" and "Curly". The writ says the
plan involved persuading Ardern he would be allowed out of the prison if he
hid a package in his rectum and went to Werribee Plaza to give the package
to an unidentified person, then returned to the prison. The plan then
involved strip-searching Ardern before he left prison,
"discovering" the package and treating him as though he had been
caught committing a serious offence. The writ describes the package as
being "15 to 20 centimetres long and tubular in shape and compact and
solid". It says Ardern inserted the package "not of his own free
will but acting under intimidation from Chris, who in the presence of
Eddington and Curly" had told Ardern not to anger the warders and the
caterer. "This occurred after Eddington had told the plaintiff to
'bank' the package which had been left for him in the prison toilets. In
prison parlance, 'bank' meant to insert the package up his rectum.
"The strip-search was carried out by Davies and the unnamed prison
officer. During the strip search the package was discovered and removed.
"Natkunarajah then proceeded to interrogate the plaintiff and treat
him as though he had committed a serious offence." The writ argues
that Ardern was a victim of what amounted to assault and battery, and
suffered damage to the anus and rectum, with bleeding and pain. His
psychological injuries, it said, involved post-traumatic stress disorder,
depression and anxiety. The writ said Ardern was especially vulnerable as a
prisoner and, because of his psychological state, personality and
circumstances, had been humiliated and embarrassed through a severe abuse
of powers. Ardern has spent most of the time since the incident in Fulham
prison, near Sale, where he is serving a sentence for assault. GSL was
warned at the time that the case could affect the renewal of its contract
with Australian Correctional Facility Pty Ltd, which sub-contracts to GSL.
The contract for Port Phillip Prison is a 20-year agreement with reviews
every three to five years. In the most recent review, completed in June,
the Government required GSL to improve its performance and standards. The
result has been a clean-out at the top of GSL, which now has a new
director, new management team and a new compliance regime that includes
daily checks and regular auditing.
November 28, 2006 The Age
THE daughter of a prisoner who died of an asthma attack in his Port
Phillip Prison cell after an emergency buzzer allegedly failed has demanded
answers over her father's death. "I want someone to be held
accountable," a tearful Vanessa Westcott said outside Melbourne
Coroners Court yesterday. An inquest on Ian Thomas Westcott heard yesterday
that the 55-year-old man left a note in his cell saying his cries for help
went unheeded. "He wrote that he had asthma on the note and that he
had attempted to call for assistance," Port Phillip Prison doctor Eugenie
Tuck told the court. Barrister Ian Freckelton, for Mr Westcott's family,
said the intercom unit that allegedly failed Mr Westcott was insufficiently
tested and checked. Dr Freckelton said that while a poor connection was the
likely cause of the intercom problem in Mr Westcott's cell, he had been
advised of intercom deficiencies in other Victorian prisons. "This is
an issue that has wider significance in this state," he said. Mr
Westcott, who was charged with dishonesty offences and remanded in July
2005, was found dead in his cell on November 28 last year. The court heard
that a medical history taken from Mr Westcott when he was remanded at
Melbourne Assessment Prison had no mention of his asthma and arrived at
Port Phillip Prison the week after his death — four months after it was
taken. The inquest continues today.
November 28, 2006 The Australian
AN inquest into the asthma-related death of a prisoner at Port Phillip
private prison in Melbourne will begin today at the Victorian Coroner's
Court. Remand prisoner Ian Westcott, 55, was found dead in his cell on
November 26 last year, after he had apparently suffered an asthma attack. A
handwritten note was found in Mr Westcott's cell which said: "Asthma
attack buzzed for help no response." The inquest will investigate
alleged failures of the prison's emergency intercom system and the medical
care provided to Mr Westcott. His daughter, Vanessa, has said she hoped the
inquest would provide some answers "for why my father died in such
horrific and humiliating circumstances". "I have so many
unanswered questions as to why my father was denied help when he was dying
in his cell, and why we as his family had to hear of his death from the
media and not from those responsible for his care." "My dad's
last plea for help will not go unheard again." The 300-bed Port
Phillip prison is in Laverton in Melbourne's south-west and is managed by
Global Solutions Limited.
March 25, 2006 The Age
THE private company that operates Port Phillip Prison has defended its
security measures after an inmate was murdered on Thursday. Tim Hall,
national spokesman for GSL (Australia) said while the stabbing of Darren
Parkes was a tragedy, Port Phillip had a good safety record and little
could have been done to prevent the murder. "Security can always be
improved but there are some violent people in prison," Mr Hall told
The Age. "Regrettably, sometimes in the best-managed prisons, violent
incidents occur." He said Parkes was the first inmate to be killed at
the maximum security prison since 1997 when GSL (then Group 4 Falck) began
operating the prison after being awarded a tender by the Kennett
government. Parkes, 29, was on remand at Port Phillip and awaiting trial
over the robbery and attempted murder of South Melbourne Market fruiterer
Bendetto Riccardi. Mr Riccardi was shot in a car park in May last year and
is now a paraplegic. A prison source told The Age yesterday that Parkes,
who was not a protected prisoner, was in his cell at the Laverton prison's
Scarborough North unit when he was stabbed in the chest about 4.30pm on
Thursday. The Age believes the attacker used an implement taken from a meal
tray and which had been fashioned into a weapon. Victoria Police will apply
to the Magistrates Court next week to interview a suspect over the stabbing.
The comments by GSL's Mr Hall attracted an angry response from Charandev
Singh, an advocate for prisoners from Brimbank Community Legal Centre.
"If they are unconcerned on a commercial level about a prisoner being
stabbed to death, then that's an indication of their lack of priority (for)
this man's life," Mr Singh said yesterday. He said Parkes was the
third Victorian prisoner to be murdered since 1998 and that private prison
operators and the State Government were jointly responsible.
March 19, 2006 The Age
FOUR prison officers have been sacked and two more counselled in the
wake of the so-called "Sausagegate" scandal, which hurt and
humiliated a vulnerable inmate of the privately owned and run Port Phillip
Prison. The Bracks Government has put GSL Australia, operator of the
Laverton maximum-security complex, on notice over a spate of alarming
incidents. The prisoner was tricked into believing he was leaving the jail,
coerced into inserting a sausage in his body, then strip-searched by
officers "in" on the "joke". The dismissed officers
were corrections supervisor Trevor Spearman, who allegedly tried to cover
up the incident, and corrections officer Steven Harmat, who allegedly
played the leading role, and corrections officers Russell Davies and Appudurai
Natkunarajah, who joined the prank. Until last week, they had been
suspended for six to nine months on full pay following the report of the
investigation by GSL's security manager, Jim Keegan, revealed exclusively
in The Sunday Age last week. Anti-private prison activist Charandev Singh
said the report shows that more needs to be done to address serious
systemic problems in the prison. His concern is backed by Vanessa Westcott,
daughter of a man who died of an asthma attack at the prison in November after
a help button he pressed apparently did not work. Ms Westcott said the
prison was leaving people like her father, remanded alleged offender Ian
Westcott, 55, in cells not monitored between 8pm and 8am. His death, after
he reportedly left a note saying he had called for help, is the subject of
three inquiries. Ms Westcott, a University of Melbourne doctoral student
researching in outback Western Australia, wants to prevent such tragedies
occurring. Her solicitor, Fitzroy Legal Service's Stan Winford, said not
enough had been done to implement the findings of inquests conducted into
deaths at the prison in the late 1990s. GSL was recently given a penalty of
almost $200,000 over "Sausagegate", which happened last May. The
penalty appears to have included other incidents. In another embarrassment
this week, the company's transport manager, Rod St George, was dressed down
by Judge John Nixon in Geelong County Court over a bungle that left a
prisoner late for court and without food or water for almost seven hours.
The problems come at an awkward time for GSL and the Bracks Government,
which is in the midst of a scheduled review of GSL's contract. Minister for
Corrections, Tim Holding told The Sunday Age: "The Government will not
accept failure in the management of any of our prisons." Under the
terms of its 20-year contract, begun in 1997, GSL was to face a review
after five years, then every three years. If renewed, the second of its
three-year terms would begin on July 1. Mr Singh, a human rights advocate
with Brimbank Melton Community Legal Centre, said the penalty faced by GSL
was "tokenistic" compared to its annual revenue of $147 million.
Police have investigated "Sausagegate" and have forwarded their
investigation to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
March 16, 2006 Geelong Informant
PORT Phillip Prison operator Global Solutions Limited (GSL) was
yesterday called to account over its bungling of a prisoner's delivery to
Geelong County Court on Tuesday. The mishap resulted in a prisoner being
forced to go without food or drink for seven-and-a-half hours. Judge John
Nixon requested the attendance of GSL's Transport Operations Manager at
court after the prisoner, due to stand trial in Geelong County Court at
10.30am, was not delivered at court until 2.30pm. When he arrived,
concerned court staff discovered the man had been locked in a holding cell
at Port Phillip Prison since 7am and had not been given anything to eat or
drink since breakfast. It was also discovered that after collecting the
prisoner from Port Phillip at noon, the prison vehicle travelled to Geelong
via Melbourne Assessment Prison and other places. Judge John Nixon
described the situation as absolutely outrageous. At 10am yesterday GSL
Transport Operations manager Roderick St George appeared in Geelong County
Court where he was questioned under oath by Crown Prosecutor Andrew Moore
about the incident. Mr St George said a jail order had been faxed to the
prison at 3.31pm on March 13 but because Monday was a public holiday, the
jail order sat in the tray until it was read at 7.15am Tuesday morning. He
said no one knew the prisoner was to come to Geelong until the fax was
read, despite the prisoner already having been taken to the holding cell at
7am to await transport. Mr St George said any jail order received after 4pm
would be regarded as ad hoc, yet he had already told the court the jail
order had been faxed to the prison half an hour earlier. He said there was
no indication the job was of high priority and said he was unaware the
prisoner was required for trial, even though a letter was attached to the
jail order, to the contrary. Mr St George said he had collected the letter
before attending court yesterday and had not been made privy to its
contents earlier. When asked why the man had not been given food or drink
for seven and a half hours, Mr St George said it was the prison's
responsibility to feed and water prisoners. Judge Nixon told Mr St George
that what had taken place was an inxecusable blunder on GSL's part and Mr
St George agreed.
March 12 2006 The Age
THE private company running Port Phillip Prison, GSL Australia, has
been fined almost $200,000 and four officers have been suspended over a
practical joke that humiliated and hurt a vulnerable prisoner last year.
Known in prison circles as "Sausagegate", the incident involved
the prisoner being coerced into hiding a package of supposed contraband
inside his body and then being strip-searched by officers who were in on
the "joke". A scathing internal GSL report on the case, obtained
by The Sunday Age, reveals that the prisoner rejected efforts to make him
cover up the incident, which left him angry, humiliated and physically
hurt. The scandal is likely to revive debate over the use of private
companies to run prisons and immigration detention centres. Last year GSL
was fined almost $500,000 by federal authorities over mistreatment of
immigration detainees, and an independent review has decided against an
automatic extension of its contract to run immigration detention centres.
Police who investigated the latest case have now referred files to the
Director of Public Prosecutions. Victorian Corrections Commissioner Kelvin
Anderson said the matter had "been taken extremely seriously",
resulting in what he termed a "significant financial penalty" under
its contract. The Sunday Age believes that the sum is close to $200,000.
December 1, 2005 The Age
A JAIL inmate who died from an asthma attack at the weekend left a note
telling authorities he had tried to get help but his calls went unanswered
due to a faulty intercom system. Corrections Commissioner Kelvin Anderson
said yesterday the body of the 55-year-old remand prisoner, a known
asthmatic, was found by Port Phillip Prison staff after lockdown between
8pm Friday and 8am Saturday along with a note that stated he had
unsuccessfully tried to raise the alarm using the intercom button but there
had been "no response". The unit where the deceased man was
staying, Scarborough South, was not staffed around the clock, he said, but
patrolling checks by the 11 prison officers on duty to monitor the 750
prisoners had been conducted. Opposition corrections spokesman Richard
Dalla-Riva said the death was unacceptable. "To have a prisoner to die
in such circumstances, where he has had to write a note saying that the
alarm doesn't work as he is dying, I think is a just a tragic set of
circumstances. "It paints a very poor picture on the hapless
Corrections Minister," Mr Dalla-Riva said. There have been two other
serious incidents in the jail system over the past week. A man stabbed at
Barwon Prison on Tuesday is in a stable condition and, in a separate
incident, Noel Faure (one of three men accused of murdering underworld
crime patriarch Lewis Moran) is also in a stable condition following a
self-mutilation attempt.
June 7, 2005 Herald Sun
THE Corrections Commissioner is awaiting the outcome of an
investigation into the alleged abuse of a prisoner at Port Phillip Prison
before deciding whether to penalise the prison's private operator. Two
prison guards have been stood down and could face criminal charges over the
incident sources describe as a practical joke gone wrong. The incident is
believed to revolve around a prisoner who was coerced into internally
concealing a sausage to smuggle it out of the prison on a day leave trip,
before being strip searched by guards allegedly in on the joke. Two more
guards could be stood down over the alleged incident. It is believed two
prisoners may also be charged with a criminal offence, possibly rape. The
alleged abuse victim is understood to have later learned the event was a
joke on him and reported it to authorities.
December 7, 2004 The Age
Port Phillip Prison's new youth unit was a whitewash that failed to deliver
promised training and counselling programs, one of its former "peer
educators" said yesterday. Martin Camm, 48, said he quit his mentoring
role to younger prisoners because there were too few peer educators and too
many men who needed help. Mr Camm told a coroner's inquiry into the death
in custody of Anthony Douglas Kennedy that peer educators were encouraged
to rate as "low" the risk of their youthful charges doing harm to
themselves in written assessments, or there would be more forms to fill out
and the prisoners would be isolated in their cells. Mr Kennedy, 20, was found
hanging from a shower fitting in Beechworth Prison on November 21, 2002,
two days after he was moved from Port Phillip Prison. An attempt a week
earlier to move Mr Kennedy to Beechworth was abandoned when he threatened
to kill himself if he was moved. Mr Camm said only a few of the promised
programs were available to prisoners and he was unable to refer Mr Kennedy,
who was distressed at the loss of both his parents, to a grief and loss
program. "I could not do it," he said. "There was only three
or four of us as peer educators doing 75 men. It was just a whitewash. What
it was portrayed to be in the media was not what it was."
A MOBILE phone has been found in a cell
at the maximum security Port Phillip Prison. The phone was found in
the cell of Mark Wilcox, an inmate of the jail's Scarborough South section
of the privately run Laverton prison. It is the ninth mobile to be
found at Port Phillip in the past three years and has again sparked concern
at how contraband could be getting in. A prison officer using a phone
detecting device on night duty found the Nokia mobile and a charger about
two weeks ago. In October last year, the operator of Port Phillip
Prison, Group 4, was warned after a string of security
breaches. Last year, career criminal Hugo Rich was found with
three phones and a digital camera in his cell. Weeks earlier,
another mobile had been found with a loaded revolver and syringes in the
cell of kidnapper Kevin Farrugia. (Herald Sun)
Rye Hill Prison, Rugby, England
September 23, 2009 BBC
The treatment of a Ukrainian man who died while on suicide watch in jail
was "appalling and at times unacceptable", a coroner has said.
Aleksey Baranovsky, 33, died while on suicide watch at HMP Rye Hill,
Warwickshire, in June 2006. He had been eligible for parole but was due to
be deported upon his release and had been self-harming in protest. A jury
found there were serious failures and inadequacies that contributed to the
death. Assistant deputy coroner for Northamptonshire Tom Osbourne made his
comments as the jury returned its verdict. The inquest, held at Rushden and
Diamonds Football Club in Irthlingborough, had heard Mr Baranovsky, who was
serving a seven-year sentence, had repeatedly self-harmed while in prison.
He had feared deportation, saying he would be killed. Mr Baranovsky was
transferred to Rye Hill in February 2006 after serving the early part of
his sentence in other prisons. He was found in his cell during the early
hours of 10 June. The inquest heard he had been placed on constant supervision,
but was found unconscious, kneeling on the ground with his head and arms on
his bed. Ambulance crews were unable to resuscitate him. He "lost so
much blood that was not replaced, he died", the jury heard.
'Inadequate systems' -- The jury returned a narrative verdict, saying he
died following a prolonged period of deliberate self-harm by way of cutting
himself and regularly refusing food. They also said there was a failure to
assess healthcare needs and to draw up a detailed care plan, as well as inadequate
systems and processes regarding communication between healthcare staff,
prison security and prison management. The jury also ruled there was
insufficient training and knowledge of some prison policies, a failure to
carry out and follow agreed actions and "inadequate
interventions". They gave the cause of death as anaemia due to chronic
blood loss and under nutrition. Mr Osbourne said: "The treatment that
Aleksey received during the period he was at Rye Hill was both appalling
and at times unacceptable. "I have no hesitation in adopting the words
of Stephen Shaw from the Prison and Probation Ombudsman when he said it was
"shameful." He added he did not feel the need to make any
recommendations as changes had already been made at the prison. The inquest
heard a psychiatric assessment recommended after a meeting at the jail was
not carried out as staff did not feel it was necessary. Several staff
members said Mr Baranovsky refused food and treatment, despite their
efforts. Security manager Liz Clay told how, on one occasion, blood was
left in the cell for more than 12 hours before it was cleaned. A chaplain
also said he thought there had been a "lack of care and
compassion" towards the inmate. Speaking after the verdict, Jerry
Petherick, managing director of offender management at GSL, which runs Rye
Hill, said there had been huge changes. "I think we have learned from
this enormously and from the ombudsman's report."
February 10, 2009 The Times
Staff at a privately run jail failed to do all they could to ensure the
safety of an inmate who killed himself while suffering a mental illness, a
coroner’s jury ruled yesterday. In a highly critical verdict, the jury said
the inmate’s death could have been avoided if staff at Rye Hill prison had
carried out proper observations of him. They said a lack of trained and
experienced staff in the segregation unit at the jail, then run by GSL
private seucurity firm, made it an unsafe place to hold Michael Bailey. Tom
Osborne, assistant deputy coroner for Northamptonshire said the death of
Bailey, 23, from Birmingham was avoidable. He added that it was shameful
that the prisoner had not been transferrred to hospital because of his
mental health problems. Bailey, serving a four year sentence for drug
offences, was found dead in his cell in the segregation unit at the prison
in March 2005. He had suddenly changed from being a fit, confident young
man to being quiet and subdued in the days before his death. His mother
Caroline Bailey told the inquest she tried to express concerns after
noticing marks on her son’s neck during a visit on March 22. But nothing
was done and he was found dead in his cell on March 24. The jury was highly
critical of staff at the prison when they answered a number of questions
surrounding his death as part of their verdict. They said there had been a
failure of communication between the segregation unit and health care
staff. There had also been a failure to carry out a full or adequate mental
health assessment during the time Bailey was in the unit and prison
officers, healthcare staff, and doctors knew or should have known he was
under a “real and immediate risk of self-harm or suicide”. The jury said
Bailey’s death could have been avoided if observations had been properly
carried out, if he had been given appropriate medication, and if he had
been placed on constant observations. The verdict also said a lack of
trained and experienced staff and effective management on the segregation
unit created an unsafe environment to hold him. “There was a failure on the
part of all staff to take responsibility for ensuring Michael Bailey’s
safety. The prison staff, healthcare staff and doctors did not do all that
could be expected of them to prevent Michael Bailey hanging himself”, the
jury said. Mr Osborne, the assistant coroner, said he would to write to
both the Ministry of Justice and the Department of Health about the lack of
availability of secure beds in the prison and the health service. He said:
“I believe that in this day and age it is shameful that there is not the
ability to transfer somebody who is in urgent need of medical attention to
an appropriate hospital. The inquest, which started last month, heard the
Category B prison run by private company GSL experienced problems with
“illicit items” being brought in, including drugs and mobile phones. In the
month following the death, the chief inspector of prisons found the jail
was “an unsafe and unstable environment, both for prisoners and staff”.
Jeremy Petherick, managing director of offender management and immigration
services for Group Four Securicor, which took over running Rye Hill from
GSL, said the prison is a very different place now. He said: “My reaction
is one of sorrow about the incident happening at all and I would like to
express my condolences to the family.”
July 16, 2008 BBC
The stab death of a prisoner at a jail seen as unsafe was
"possibly avoidable", ministers have admitted. Wayne Reid, 44, of
Birmingham, was stabbed in the chest by another inmate at HMP Rye Hill, on
the Warwickshire and Northamptonshire border. Three men were sentenced in
April 2006 over his murder, which happened days before he was due to be
released. Prisons Minister David Hanson told Parliament the running of the
jail was currently under examination. Mr Hanson said they were hoping to
find out "what lessons could be learned". An inquest jury ruled
last month that the prison was "unsafe and unstable". A statement
issued by the jail said that since Reid's death in 2005 changes had been
made. 'Tragic death' -- Leicestershire North West MP David Taylor asked the
minister in the House of Commons what was being done to improve safety at
that jail and others across the UK. Mr Hanson said the government had
received a letter from the coroner who carried out the inquest, outlining
some of the issues that had been raised in the hearing. He said: "We
are working to see whether lessons can be learnt from the coroner's verdict
into Wayne Reid's tragic and possibly avoidable death." Rye Hill is a
category-B prison run by private security company GSL. Bisharat Chaudry, of
Slough, Berkshire, and Ibrahim Musone, of Cricklewood, London, were
convicted of Reid's murder. Deedar Syed, 26, of Peterborough,
Cambridgeshire, was also jailed for disposing of a blood-stained jacket.
July 7, 2008 The Guardian
At the end of last month, a Northampton inquest jury delivered their
verdict on the death of a prisoner, Wayne Reid, at Rye Hill prison, a
privately run jail, near Rugby. Reid, 44, from Birmingham, was stabbed to
death in April 2005. Two prisoners were later jailed for life for the
killing. The inquest jury concluded that "knives were brought into the
prison undetected because the security searches carried out were
inadequate, especially those on members of staff". It found that the
prison authorities did not do all that reasonably could be expected of them
to prevent the risk of harm to Reid and other prisoners and concluded that
bad management, inexperienced staff and lack of security contributed to the
death. It is not the first time that the category B jail, holding 600
serious offenders and operated by Global Solutions Ltd (GSL), has come
under fire. Reid's murder took place while a prisons inspectorate team was
in the jail. In the scathing report that followed, the chief inspector,
Anne Owers, said the prison had deteriorated - since the last inspection -
to the extent that it was an "unsafe and unstable environment, both
for prisoners and staff". Owers took the highly unusual step of
informing government ministers of her fears. She questioned whether
inexperienced and poorly supported staff were fully in control of
undermanned wings. During their visit, inspectors were shown illicit mobile
phones in the possession of prisoners who also reported the presence drugs,
alcohol and knives. The jury was told that a "criminal
subculture" existed at Rye Hill at the time of the murder and that a
security report posted two days before Reid died warned that a knife,
believed to have been smuggled in by a member of staff, was hidden on the
wing where Reid was housed. It also found that management at the jail ought
to have been aware that a "contract" had been taken out on Reid.
A seasoned prison governor told the jury that searches for illicit items
were not carried out properly, with jail records showing two cells being
searched by the same officer at exactly the same time. One witness told the
coroner the prison was approaching a state where "you can do what you
like and get away with it". The solicitor who represented the Reid
family at the inquest says that evidence emerged showing the contract
between the private prison and the Home Office provided a financial
incentive not to carry out proper cell searches, which meant that knives
were available on the wing. She said that a dispute that could have resulted
in a black eye ended up as a fatal stabbing. Two weeks before Reid was
murdered, another prisoner at Rye Hill, Michael Bailey, apparently took his
own life in the jail's segregation unit. Bailey had made serious
allegations of corruption against an officer at Rye Hill. Three members of
staff were later charged with the manslaughter, by gross negligence, of the
23-year- old. They were cleared on the direction of the judge at
Northampton crown court. After the verdict, one of the defendants, Paul
Smith, who managed the segregation unit at the time of Bailey's death, said
that GSL "failed me and failed Michael Bailey. In my role as manager I
did not have the opportunity to do the job properly. I expressed concern
about the level of support and training to senior management and they
didn't do anything." In June, 2006, another prisoner at Rye Hill,
Oleksiy Baronovsky died, apparently from self-inflicted injuries. The
prison ombudsman's report on Baronovsky's death is complete, but its
contents will not be revealed until the inquest, but impeccable sources
have described it as a "shocking document" castigating the lack
of medical treatment for a man who was clearly seriously ill. Every private
jail has in place a controller, appointed by the Ministry of Justice, to
monitor the regime. During a Panorama/ Guardian undercover inquiry into Rye
Hill in 2006, it emerged that few, if any, staff knew of the controller's
existence. A spokesman for the MOJ said that the Offender Management Bill
enabled some duties, previously undertaken by the controller, to be
transferred to the contractor. The first private prison in this country
opened in 1994 and there are nine now operating in England and Wales.
Critics of non-state jails say that the legislation came in by stealth and
the morality of profiting from punishment was never debated in parliament.
Deborah Coles, co-director of Inquest, said that where prisons are run for
profit, the health, safety and welfare of prisoners will always run second
to financial interests. She says that these three deaths and the two
critical reports into Rye Hill show the role of controllers are subsumed
within the culture of the private sector and she accuses the Ministry of
Justice of "washing its hands" of the failings of private jails.
An MoJ spokesman said the ministry remain concerned about Rye Hill and the
prison is still subject to a rectification notice (requiring GSL to rectify
failures in performance covered by the contract). He said that the contract
is being robustly managed and progress is being made to take forward the
chief inspector's recommendations. Three avoidable deaths and two damning
chief inspector's reports on, Rye Hill continues to operate as a jail for
serious offenders, despite clear evidence that it is an unsafe place for
both prisoners and staff. The catalogue of continuing failings begs the
question: how many more mistakes, or fatalities, will it take before the
Ministry of Justice decides that GSL is not fit to run this dangerous
prison?
June 26, 2008 BBC
A prison where an inmate was stabbed to death was "unsafe and
unstable" for both prisoners and staff, an inquest jury has ruled.
Wayne Reid, 44, of Birmingham, was stabbed in the chest by another inmate
at HMP Rye Hill, on the Warwickshire and Northamptonshire border. Three men
were sentenced in April 2006 over his murder. A statement issued by the
prison after the inquest said since Reid's death in 2005 system changes had
been made. The jury gave its verdict in a series of nine individual
statements at the end of a two-week inquest held at Rushden and Diamonds
Football Club in Irthlingborough, Northamptonshire. These included findings
that staff were inadequately supported by management, the prison's
cell-searching system had failed and lax security meant knives could be
taken in. The final three statements said: "The prison authorities
ought to have known that Mr Reid was under a real and immediate risk of
harm from other prisoners. "The prison authorities did not do all that
reasonably could be expected of them to prevent the risk of harm to Mr Reid
or any other prisoner. "We conclude that our above findings in
relation to Rye Hill prison created an environment that contributed to the
death of Wayne Reid." Rye Hill prison is a category-B prison run by
private security company GSL. 'Run ragged' -- A solicitor for Mr Reid's
family said they were pleased with the verdict but added a penalty point
system for finding banned items in the prison was a disincentive for
management to search properly. "That's the most disturbing thing
that's emerged," she said. The inquest heard there was only two
custody officers overseeing Reid's wing of 70 prisoners when he died.
Inspectors also said there was a "criminal subculture" at Rye
Hill, searches were not taking place properly and inexperienced officers
were being "run ragged by experienced prisoners". A spokesman for
GSL said: "Managing a prison is an extremely complex task and since
2005 a number of changes have taken place, including the appointment of
several experienced managers and staff, to move the prison forward."
Bisharat Chaudry, of Slough, Berkshire, and Ibrahim Musone, of Cricklewood,
London, have been convicted of Reid's murder. Deedar Syed, 26, of
Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, was also jailed for disposing of a blood-stained
jacket.
June 26, 2008 Channel 14 News
The jury at an inquest holds a private prison company partly to blame for
the death of an inmate. Simon Israel reports. Wayne Reid was stabbed by
another prisoner at Rye Hill jail in Warwickshire, run by the private
security group GSL. The jury found that knives were allowed in because of
inadequate searches of staff. Channel 4 News has learned that under a
penalty point system imposed by the government, the discovery of weapons
was not thought as important an offence as an assault.
December 11, 2007 BBC
Gordon Hacker, of Corbett Street, Rugby, admitted conspiring to smuggle
cannabis into HMP Rye Hill between November 2004 and April 2005. The
44-year-old was jailed for four years at Northampton Crown Court. Convicted
armed robbers Steven McCluskey and Thomas Zealand, both from Coventry, were
jailed for five years and four-and-a-half years respectively. McCluskey,
25, admitted conspiracy to supply cannabis while Zealand, 27, also admitted
supplying heroin and ecstasy. The court heard Hacker had advised the
inmates when the best times were for drugs to be thrown over the prison
wall. He claimed he had not been rewarded for his actions and had helped
the inmates because he felt under pressure. "He was surrounded by prisoners
who knew the prison inside out. What he did was try to create a favour to
get an easy shift," Peter Hunter, defending, said. Sentencing Hacker,
Judge Richard Bray said: "A depressing picture has been painted of Rye
Hill Prison, of the availability of drugs within the prison and of low
morale among inmates and prison officers. 'Breach of trust' "You knew
what was going on and facilitated the process by giving notice to those
involved of the best times to throw drugs over the prison wall. "I
appreciate what was said about the regime at Rye Hill Prison but that
cannot excuse what you did, it was a grave breach of trust." The court
heard Zealand's girlfriend Sheree Williams, 23, of Charity Road, Coventry,
controlled bank accounts used by prisoners to pay for the drugs and stored
9kg of cannabis in her son's wardrobe. She was jailed for two-and-a-half
years. Zealand's 26-year-old sister Stephanie, of Thompsons Road, Coventry,
who was McCluskey's girlfriend, admitted possession of class A drugs with
intent to supply and money laundering. She was jailed for two-and-a-half
years.
November 19, 2007 BBC News
A former prison officer has pleaded guilty to helping inmates smuggle drugs
into a private prison in Warwickshire. Gordon Hacker, from Rugby, conspired
with inmates serving at HMP Rye Hill between November 2004 and April 2005,
Northampton Crown Court heard. Hacker, 44, tipped off inmates about the
best times for accomplices to throw drugs into the prison over the prison
wall, the court was told. He was remanded on conditional bail and is due to
be sentenced in December. Hacker, 44, was charged along with four
co-defendants, all of whom had already pleaded guilty to conspiracy to
supply controlled drugs at Rye Hill. Elaborate conspiracy -- They are
Stephen McClusky and Thomas Zealand, who were inmates at Rye Hill at the
time of the conspiracy, and Sheree Williams and Stephanie Zealand, the two
men's girlfriends. They are all also due to be sentenced in December. Judge
Richard Bray, presiding, described the elaborate drug-trafficking
conspiracy at Rye Hill. He told the court: "It consisted of using
moneys that had been earned in prison through prison work, or moneys used
by relatives of inmates in prison to fund a bank account used by one of the
girlfriends of the prisoners." Drugs were then bought with the money
on the outside and thrown over the prison walls at night to inmates who
were waiting on the inside, the court heard. Judge Bray told the court
Hacker's involvement was "by telling them when was a good time to
throw stuff over the wall, and doubtless turning a blind eye to what was
going on". Telephone records revealed that Hacker had received
frequent and regular telephone calls over the four-month period from 2004
to 2005 from Stephen McClusky and Thomas Zealand. Rachel Brand QC,
prosecuting, told the court: "Sometimes he was being called by these
men several times, many times, in the course of one day." Ms Brand
told the court that although the calls often lasted no more than a few
seconds, it was "enough, I suppose, for someone to say I need to speak
to you, come and see me". Ecstasy, diamorphine, heroin -- There was
insufficient evidence to prove whether Hacker had actually brought drugs
into the prison himself, or whether he realised the scale of the trafficking,
the court was told. But payments ranging from £20 to more than £800 were
made into the bank account being used for the conspiracy. The payments to
the account held by Sheree Williams amounted to £6,390; and large
quantities of drugs were found at the homes of Sheree Williams and
Stephanie Zealand, the court was told. The drugs included cannabis resin,
ecstasy pills, diamorphine and heroin. Speaking outside the court, Det Sgt
Andy Blaize of Northamptonshire Police, said postal orders were sent from "numerous"
prisoners to addresses across Coventry. He said: "When you look at
these addresses, there is some link with an inmate, and Stephanie Zealand
has gone to collect the majority of these postal orders." Judge Bray
said: "As to the scale of all this, we're not talking about the odd
throw over the prison walls here. This is serious stuff." In 2005, a
report by the chief inspector of prisons found HMP Rye Hill to be
"unsafe for staff and inmates alike". The report of the
inspection was described by the Prison Reform Trust as "one of the
most damning we have ever seen".
October 9, 2007 The Guardian
One of the most troubled privately-run jails in Britain urgently needs a
team of public sector managers to come in and bail it out, according to a
report by the chief inspector of prisons published today. Prisoners, rather
than the often young and inexperienced staff, are in control in parts of
Rye Hill prison near Rugby, Warwickshire, which is run by the private
security firm GSL, Anne Owers warns. At least 100 inmates should be moved
out to other jails, she says. In her third inspection since the prison
opened in 2001, the chief inspector says that safety remains
"fundamentally fragile" with 52% of the 660 inmates, including
150 lifers, saying they felt unsafe. When prison inspectors visited Rye
Hill in June they were told of 617 reportable incidents so far this year,
including two rooftop protests, drug finds and assaults. Ten weapons had
been found in the previous four weeks and glass bottles available from the
canteen had been used as weapons in violent assaults. The inspectors say
prisoners were not only verbally aggressive towards staff but had also
managed to subvert the incentives scheme to such a point that many of the
most badly behaved were actually on the "enhanced" or
"super-enhanced" levels of the scheme, which include extra visits
and even meals with families. The Prison Service said last night that a
decision had been taken in August to reduce Rye Hill's population from 664
to 600. But it rejected the chief inspector's demand for a team of
experienced public sector managers to be sent in to stabilise the prison.
Instead a "rectification notice" has been issued against GSL,
which has appointed a new director. The chief inspector's report follows
disclosures by an undercover reporter working for Guardian Films who
earlier this year uncovered routine bullying of staff by prisoners who had
easy access to drugs and mobile phones. Ms Owers says many prisoners and
staff told inspectors that prisoners were inadequately supervised on the
wings, often by only one member of staff: "There was some evidence
that violent incidents were not consistently followed up or investigated,
which led to prisoners stating that they, rather than the staff, were in
control of the units."
August 11, 2007 Northampton Chronicle
An organised gang who smuggled drugs into a privately-run prison in
Northamptonshire have been warned to expect long prison sentences. Two inmates
at HMP Rye Hill, near Daventry, arranged for their girlfriends to be paid
by either inmates sending out postal orders as payment or for friends and
family to deposit money in a bank account before they would supply
prisoners with cannabis, ecstasy or heroin. Prisoner Thomas Zealand, 24,
who is currently serving six-and-a-half years at neighbouring HMP Onley,
his girlfriend Sheree Williams, 22, fellow inmate Steven McCluskey, 26, and
his girlfriend Stephanie Zealand, 26, Thomas's sister, have all admitted
their roles involved in supplying drugs. They were charged after the police
investigation into the death of Michael Bailey, who was found hanged in his
cell at the jail sited on the Warwickshire-Northamptonshire border in March
2006. At Northampton Crown Court Thomas Zealand pleaded guilty to
conspiracy to supply cannabis between August 2004 and July 2005. Due for
release next month, he reacted with anger and abuse after Judge Richard
Bray refused an application for him to be released on bail pending sentence.
Stephanie Zealand admitted possessing cannabis, ecstasy and heroin with
intent to supply as well being concerned in retaining criminal property by
having postal orders sent to her Coventry home as payment for prison drugs
supplied. Once payment was made, word was sent into the prison for the
drugs to be supplied. Williams admitted possessing nine kilos of cannabis
found at her home in July 2005 and a similar money laundering charge in
using her bank account to deposit payments for drugs. Rachel Brand QC said
prisoners' friends and family would pay money in for drugs to be supplied
to their loved ones inside HMP Rye Hill. Judge Richard Bray, who has
previously criticised both Rye Hill and Wellingborough Prisons for their
record on drugs, said the gang should expect to receive lengthy prison
sentences. Releasing the two women on conditional bail, he said:
"These are serious charges they have pleaded to. Let me say this, they
would be very, very foolish if they do not turn up on the day they are
required to do so because there will be consecutive sentences for breach of
bail." Heroin addict McCluskey, who is serving nine years for armed
robbery, has already pleaded guilty to the cannabis conspiracy charge and
three offences of being concerned in the supply of cannabis, ecstasy and
heroin. He will be sentenced later this year. Gordon Hacker, aged 44, of
Corbett Street, Rugby, who worked as a prison guard, denies conspiracy to
supply class C cannabis. He was released on bail pending his trial in
November.
June 25, 2007 BBC
A group of prisoners has caused a disturbance at a privately run jail
in Warwickshire. The inmates took control of one wing at Rye Hill prison
during the incident on Monday afternoon. A team of specially trained and
equipped staff regained control of the wing after two hours. A spokesman
for GSL, which runs Rye Hill, said that despite some damage at the prison,
there were no injuries to either staff or inmates.
April 16, 2007 Guardian Unlimited
The Home Office has pledged to review the management of a privately run
prison where an investigation by Guardian Films and the BBC uncovered
routine bullying of staff by prisoners at the jail. A reporter working
undercover as a prison officer at the troubled Rye Hill jail found
widespread intimidation of staff and incidents where diligent custody
officers were urged to "back off" by senior colleagues for fear
of upsetting inmates. It also found that prisoners had easy access to drugs
and mobile phones. The investigation, which will be shown tonight, comes
after the jail had already been heavily criticised by inspectors over the
murder of an inmate and the "avoidable" suicides of prisoners.
The Home Office insisted that Global Solutions Limited (GSL), the private
firm that runs Rye Hill, has already been penalised for failings at the
jail. But it added that the management would be reviewed again after
tonight's broadcast. In a statement a spokeswoman said: "The regional
offender manager will continue to work closely with the Commercial and
Competitions Unit of Noms [the National Offender Manager Service] and the
Home Office controller in considering whether further remedial action is
required to ensure compliance by GSL against the contract. A review will be
held following the showing of the Panorama programme and the response
received from the contractor, as to whether additional action is
required." The statement also admitted there had been failings at the
jail. It said: "There have been undoubted failures in the past
performance of GSL against their contract to deliver the required service
in a number of areas. Both the current contract holder, the regional
offender manager for the East Midlands, and the previous holder, the head
of the office for contracted prisons, have sought to remedy these failings
through robust contract management. "Contract management of Rye Hill
has involved financial penalties related to specific incidents (escapes),
the withholding of invoices and penalty points to reflect poor performance,
which translate into further financial penalties."
April 16, 2007 BBC
An undercover reporter has unearthed evidence of intimidation and
corruption at a privately-run prison, a Panorama investigation will say.
The reporter, who worked at Rye Hill, a category B prison in Warwickshire,
for five months, says prisoners openly threatened a newly qualified
officer. He also says he was asked by inmates to smuggle in mobile phones
and drugs. GSL, which runs the jail, said inmates' behaviour was
unacceptable but accused the reporter of ignoring his training. Murder in
cell: HMP Rye Hill is one of a growing number of private prisons in the
country intended to help deal with a rising prison population. It houses
600 prisoners nearing the end of sentences of at least four years,
including criminals from the Iranian embassy siege and Strangeways prison
riots. However in the last two years, there have been one murder and two
suicides, and government inspectors have given it two damning reports.
During one inspection, prisoner Wayne Reid was stabbed through the heart in
his cell by two other prisoners, both with criminal records for violence
and knife crime. Chief Inspector of Prisons Anne Owers said even before the
murder, her team had "established to their own satisfaction that they
felt it was unsafe and unstable for both prisoners and staff". She
shouldn't be frightened - she's fully supported. As part of the
investigation by Guardian Films on behalf of the BBC, the reporter, a
former SAS ex-British Army soldier, undertook a 13-week training period to
become a newly qualified prison officer. He was earning £250 a week - a
third less than officers in the state sector. During his time on the wings,
he said a new recruit was threatened for enforcing prison rules too keenly.
At one point, she was threatened with a pool cue by one prisoner, the
programme says. The officer said: "I'm not feeling safe because of the
staff. "And I don't know if I can be bothered with it for the money.
They're going to kill me I do believe." Smuggling cannabis: GSL's
director of communications, John Bates, said: "People shouldn't be
surprised by the fact that prisoners in a prison seek to coerce staff into
making their lives easier and we don't hide from that fact, and that's why
during the training, we return to that theme regularly." And of the
officer, he said: "She shouldn't be frightened. She's fully
supported." In another incident, the undercover reporter says he was
openly approached by inmates seeking to "groom" him into a
smuggler. He reports being offered £200 for a standard mobile phone and up
to £750 for a camera phone, to be paid to him by telephone banking. Another
prisoner offered him up to £1,500 - more than he earns in a month from GSL
- for one delivery of cannabis. Mr Bates said the prisoners' behaviour was
"completely unacceptable" and the reporter knew what they were
doing was illegal. "If that officer had done what he had been trained
to do - that matter would have been dealt with. He failed his colleagues
and he put himself at risk," he added. Panorama: Life Behind Bars can
be seen on BBC1 at 2030 BST on Monday 16 April.
June 8, 2006 BBC News
Four prison officers have appeared in court over charges relating to
the death of a prisoner in March last year. Michael Bailey, 23, was found
dead in his cell at HMP Rye Hill, on the Northants and Warwickshire border.
Daniel Daymond, Paul Smith, Samantha Prime and Ben King appeared at
Daventry Magistrates' Court to face charges over his death. The four were
granted unconditional bail and will reappear at Northampton Crown Court on
23 June. Mr Daymond, 23, of Rugby, is accused of manslaughter by gross
negligence and conspiring to pervert the course of justice. Mr Smith, 39,
of Birchwood, Warrington, and Ms Prime, 28, of Rugby, both face a single
charge of causing manslaughter by gross negligence. Mr King, 21, of
Southbrook, Daventry, is charged with conspiring to pervert the course of
justice.
April 23, 2006 24 DASH
Prison officers are calling for all jail wardens to be better armed
claiming they should be given metal batons in order to defend themselves
from assault. The Prison Officers Association (POA) conference next month
will vote on whether the extendable baton should be allowed in many more
prisons. The union's national general secretary Brian Caton said he
supported the proposals and predicted the motions would be passed.
Currently, staff at private prisons such as Doncaster do not carry batons.
"We would say that's wrong," Mr Caton said. "Prisoners in
private prisons are no less violent, they're no less difficult. "You
are twice as likely to be attacked in a private prison as in a public
prison." Last July the Chief Inspector of Prisons warned that staff at
a privately-run prison were being bullied by inmates. Anne Owers demanded
urgent action after discovering unsafe conditions at Rye Hill jail, near
Rugby in Warwickshire, which is run by GSL UK Ltd. Inexperienced officers
were ignoring misbehaviour and evidence of contraband in order to
"survive" on the wings, the report said.
April 6, 2006 BBC
Two prisoners who murdered a fellow inmate in his cell five days before
his release have been jailed for life. Wayne Reid, 44, of Birmingham, was
stabbed at Rye Hill Prison, near Rugby, Northampton Crown Court heard.
Inmates Ibrahim Musone, of Cricklewood, north London, and Bisharat Chaudry,
of Slough, Berks, will serve at least 15 years and 14 years respectively.
Deedar Syed, 26, of Peterborough, Cambs, was jailed for 30 months for
disposing of a blood-stained jacket.
December 21, 2005 The Times
A PRIVATELY run jail is out of control, with high levels of assaults and a
culture on the wings of drug abuse, according to a highly critical report
published today. Prison officers were covered with a bucket of excrement by
inmates at Forest Bank jail as inspectors toured the building. The incident
known in prison slang as "potting" was the latest in a number of
similar attacks on prison staff. Anne Owers, the Chief Inspector of
Prisons, criticised the culture at the jail which was "steeped in
serious drug abuse". In one month alone, more than 2kg of cannabis,
60g of heroin and 4.6g of cocaine were found at the jail, run by United
Kingdom Detention Services. Ms Owers was so alarmed by the prison in
Salford, Greater Manchester, that she immediately alerted senior Prison
Service officials to the extent of the failings. "There had been a
significant deterioration in safety so that urgent management attention and
remedial action was required to rebuild staff confidence and properly
regain control of the prison," the inspection report said. A surprise
inspection in July at the jail, run by UKDS, a subsidiary of Sodexho
Alliance which runs three prisons, found routine intimidation of staff,
prisoner assaults on other prisoners running at 25 a month and staff
turnover of 25 per cent a year. There had been 2,500 prisoner discipline
hearings in six months and 40 per cent of compulsory drug tests were
positive. Ms Owers said: "There were a series of assaults against
staff, including one unsavoury incident when a bucket of excrement was
thrown into an office and over two staff who were there, while we were at
the prison. This was by no means the first such 'potting' incident in the
prison's recent history. We were told there were two or three others in the
previous couple of months." The report depicts a prison where drugs
are rife and that a high level of staff turnover meant custody officers
were unable to tackle problems. It is the second report in less than six
months in which Ms Owers has found serious problems of control at a
privately run jail. In July she found that staff at Rye Hill jail near
Rugby had little confidence in controlling prisoners and the premises were
"almost out of control". Staff turnover at the prison, operated
by GSL, formerly part of the Group 4, was running at 40 per cent a year.
Private sector involvement in the prison system has helped to spur the
public sector to improve its performance and introduced innovation into the
jail system. But staff turnover at private jails is higher than State-run
jails - reflecting lower pay for officers compared with those in State
prisons. It is also difficult to get information about what goes on in
private jails with "commercial confidentiality" used as a reason
not to disclose details. One prison watchdog said: "The private sector
do not like anyone knowing too much about what goes on in their prisons. If
they could get away with giving out no information at all, they
would."
August 5, 2005 The Guardian
Police investigating the death of a prisoner in the segregation unit of a
privately run jail have referred the case to the Crown Prosecution Service.
Michael Bailey, 24, was found hanging in his cell at Rye Hill prison, near
Rugby, in March. Prisoners at the jail told the Guardian at the time that
he had been segregated after giving staff the name of an officer who had
been supplying drugs. Following the death, six staff were suspended from
the prison and two custody officers remain on police bail. Officers from
the homicide and major crime unit of Northamptonshire police are
investigating allegations of supplying controlled drugs to the prison. Rye
Hill, operated by Global Solutions Ltd, holds 600 serious offenders. After
an inspection in April, the chief inspector of prisons said the jail was
"unsafe for staff and inmates alike". The report of the
inspection, published last month, was described by the Prison Reform Trust
as "one of the most damning we have ever seen". In April, another
prisoner, 44-year-old Wayne Reid, died from stab wounds. Reid had been due
to be released a few days after he died. Three men have been charged with
his murder. Detective Chief Inspector Pete Windridge, of Northamptonshire
police, said the force had investigated the death of Michael Bailey and had
sent its preliminary findings to the CPS. He added that "an investigation
into the supply of controlled drugs into the prison is ongoing. Two prison
custody officers, a 21-year-old man from Bedworth [near Coventry] and a
42-year-old man from Warwickshire, remain on police bail pending further
inquiries. "A further two men who are
prison inmates and three women not connected with the prison have also been
arrested and bailed in relation to this investigation."
July 29, 2005 Morning Star
The Prison Officers Association called for the return of Rye Hill jail to
public control yesterday, after the Chief Inspector of Prisons Anne Owers
found that staff at the private prison are being bullied by inmates. In a
damning new report, Ms Owers found that inexperienced prison officers are
ignoring inmates' misbehaviour and working in pairs, just in order to
"survive" on the wings of the Warwickshire jail, which is run by
privateers GSL UK Ltd. "We saw evidence of staff being bullied by
prisoners and withdrawing from, rather than confronting, intimidatory and
aggressive behaviour," Ms Owers said. A POA spokesman explained that,
while the union is "extremely concerned" at the findings, it is
not altogether suprised. "We have been receiving information from our
members about the lack of control, as well as lack of management supervision,"
he said.
July 28, 2005 Politics
Anne Owers said the situation at Rye Hill prison near Rugby had reached a
point that staff, many of whom were "inexperienced and poorly
supported", were being bullied by inmates. During her
unannounced inspection, a death occurred that resulted in a murder
investigation, while before the team arrived at Rye Hill the prison had
seen a hostage situation. Inspectors reported an increasing number of
inmates testing positive for drugs and found knives, drugs and alcohol were
all available on the wings at the prison, some of which were only staffed
by two officers. Inmates at the prison, which is owned and operated
by private company GSL UK, reported that they sorted out fights and
bullying themselves. "So great were the concerns that I
immediately informed ministers and urged the chief executive of the
National Offender Management Service to take immediate and decisive
action," Ms Owers said. Rye Hill is a category B jail and has a
capacity of about 600 inmates. GSL has been fined £95,000 as a result of
its poor performance. The Prison Reform Trust said today's report was
"one of the most damning reports of a prison we have seen", which
painted a picture of an institution run not by private company but by the
prisoners themselves. Ms Owers' report comments on the "keenness
and enthusiasm" of residential staff but criticises their lack of
training and adequate management support, and highlights the estimated 40
per cent staff turnover rate. The director of the Prison Reform Trust, Juliet
Lyon, said this turnover figure would "disgrace many burger
bars", saying it was "hazardous to safety and undermines the work
of a prison in guiding prisoners towards a responsible life on
release".
July 28, 2005 The Guardian
A private prison was yesterday described as "unsafe", with
prisoners bullying staff, and drugs, knives and alcohol freely
available. The inspection report into Rye Hill prison, near Rugby,
was described by the Prison Reform Trust as "one of the most damning
reports of a prison we have seen". The trust's director, Juliet
Lyon, said: "This prison appears to be run not by a private company,
but by the prisoners themselves." The chief inspector of
prisons, Anne Owers, said Rye Hill had deteriorated to the extent that, at
the time of inspection, it was "an unsafe and unstable
environment". Inspectors found inexperienced staff on a wing of
70 unlocked prisoners, "surviving by ignoring misbehaviour or evidence
of illicit possessions". They also witnessed evidence of staff being
bullied by prisoners. In the period immediately before the
inspection, in April, the jail, holding 600 serious offenders, had
experienced an apparently self-inflicted death in the segregation unit. A
hostage was taken and there had been a 100% rise in the number of assaults
against staff, at a time when assault figures are down across the
service. Staff and prisoners told inspectors that managers at the
jail gave no support to custody staff and were rarely seen on the wings
when prisoners were unlocked. The report also highlighted failings in the
race relations programme at the jail. An analysis of use of force data
shown to inspectors revealed that 57% of all recorded use of force involved
black or ethnic minority prisoners, yet that group accounted for only 37%
of the jail's population.
May 20, 2005 BBC
A prison officer arrested on suspicion of supplying drugs after the death
of an inmate has been released on bail. Michael Bailey, 23, who was serving
a four-year term for supplying drugs, was found hanged in the segregation
unit of Rye Hill prison, Warks, on 24 March. He had been separated from
others amid concerns about his behaviour. Northamptonshire Police, who are
investigating the death, said the 42-year-old Warwickshire man had been
released pending further inquiries. He was detained on Thursday on
suspicion of being concerned in the supply of controlled drugs. Detectives
also searched a house in Rugby as part of the investigation. A 21-year-old
officer from Coventry was arrested on 19 April on the same charge and has
since been released on police bail pending further inquiries. Two staff at
the privately-run prison were suspended in March for alleged irregularities
with documentation pending an internal inquiry but not as a direct result
of Mr Bailey's death. Rye
Hill is run by GSL and houses 660 male prisoners, including 150 vulnerable
inmates at a purpose-built unit.
April 22, 2005 BBC
Ibrahim Musone, Bisharat Chaudry and Deedar Syed are charged with
murdering Wayne Martin Reid at Rye Hill Prison in Willoughby, near Rugby,
Warwickshire. The men, aged 40, 30 and 25, are accused of stabbing
44-year-old Reid, from Birmingham, on 13 April. A post-mortem examination
revealed that Reid, from Balsall Heath, died of stab wounds. He was serving a seven-year sentence for
robbery at the 660-inmate jail, which is run by the private security
company GSL.
April 19, 2005 BBC
A prison officer has been arrested on suspicion of supplying drugs by
police investigating the death of an inmate at Rye Hill prison in
Warwickshire. Michael Bailey, from Birmingham, was found hanged in his cell
in the segregation unit on 24 March. The 23-year-old had been serving a
four-year sentence for supplying drugs. Northamptonshire Police said they
arrested a 21-year-old prison custody officer, from the Coventry area, on
Tuesday morning.
April 14, 2005 BBC
Three prisoners have been arrested on suspicion of murdering a fellow
inmate at a privately-run jail. Wayne Martin Reid, 44, from Balsall Heath,
Birmingham, was stabbed at Rye Hill Prison, near Rugby, Warwickshire. He
was given first aid by officers and medical staff but pronounced dead on
Wednesday afternoon. John Bates, a spokesman for prison operator GSL, which
runs Rye Hill jail, said Reid was stabbed in the chest. "Our
condolences have been passed to the family and friends of Mr Reid," he
added.
November 1, 2004 BBC
An investigation is being carried out at a Warwickshire prison after two
inmates finished a rooftop protest. The men came down from the roof of a
shed at Rye Hill prison near Rugby at just after 9.30pm on Saturday
evening. It is not clear what the demonstration at
the jail, which is run by Global Solutions Ltd, was about.
UK Court Security
February 16, 2006 BBC
A councillor has called for an urgent review of security after two
prisoners escaped from Derby Crown Court in the space of a week. Derby city
councillor Richard Smalley said one of the prisoners was on remand for
allegedly being involved in a post-office robbery in his ward. Kabbar
Kamara, 25, from Liverpool made his escape after being refused bail. He
appeared in a court on the top floor before getting away in a manner
likened to the fictional character Spiderman. Unsuccessful search. He
punched his way through the dock, ran from the court and into a toilet. He
squeezed through a window, climbed onto a roof, jumped down to another
level and dropped 12 feet to the ground. Police used a helicopter and dogs
to search for him but without success. Previously Fabian Wilson, 23, from
Derby absconded after appearing in court charged with breaching a community
service order. Mr Smalley, deputy Conservative leader on the city council,
said: "I think it's of paramount importance that the way offenders or
alleged offenders are handled within the court is looked at and tightened
up." Security at the court is handled by GLS, formerly Group 4. A
spokesman said a review would be conducted to identify any lessons that
could be learned from the escapes.
UK Prisoner Transport
June 11, 2009 This Is Nottingham
A SUICIDAL prisoner ran through the grounds of a primary school naked
in a violent escape bid. Patrick Jones, 29, had just assaulted two prison
guards in their van after they saved his life. Nottingham Crown Court heard
he was "lashing out like a crazed animal" when they brought him
round from a failed suicide attempt. "He broke free, ran off down the
motorway embankment into some trees," said Dawn Pritchard,
prosecuting. "He removed his jeans and ran off naked. He ran through
the grounds of Trowell Primary School naked at 12.15pm on April 16 last
year. He was located near Cossall village." Global Solutions custody
officers Maxine Starbuck and Richard Carrington stopped their van 15-20
minutes into their journey when Jones made a "half-hearted"
suicide attempt with a ligature. The court heard the father-of-two dropped
forward and went blue. The officers cut the ligature from his neck and he
took a gasp for air. Mr Carrington was hit in the legs and Ms Starbuck's
hair was pulled. "He said there were voices in his head to kill
himself and that's what he intended to do," said Miss Pritchard. Jones
was being driven from Derby Magistrates' Court to Nottingham Prison when
the drama unfolded. The officers were aware he was considered a suicide
risk. Judge Dudley Bennett sentenced Jones to nine months in prison
consecutive to a three-year sentence he is serving for burglary. The judge
said that prison officers had to be protected from violence. "If you
offer them violence you serve a sentence for it." Jones, of St Giles
Road, Derby, pleaded guilty to escape and two counts of assault causing
actual bodily harm on the officers. Mark Watson, in mitigation, said:
"He was very unwell at the time of this offence and that impacted on
his behaviour."
February 1, 2006 The Guardian
Heavily pregnant prisoners are being forced to travel hundreds of miles in
claustrophobic prison vans known to inmates as "sweatboxes", the
Guardian has learned. The women are being transported in conditions which
campaigners have criticised as "unethical and barbaric", often
spending many hours in cramped cells measuring 860mm by 620mm (34in by
24in), with hard seats and no seatbelts. Beverley Beech, chairwoman of the
Association for Improvements in the Maternity Services, called for the
Prison Service to stop using cellular vehicles to transport pregnant
prisoners. "It is time this unethical and barbaric practice was
stopped," she said. "Women in advanced pregnancy are in no
position to run away and they should be treated with humanity and awareness
of their condition." A source within Styal prison in Cheshire said a
27-year-old inmate had spent four hours in a van the day before her baby
was due. She expected to be taken to court in Liverpool by taxi and
complained when told she would travel in a prison van. She was then offered
a thin cushion. The trip from Styal to Liverpool should have taken less
than an hour but lasted two and half hours because the vehicle had to drop
off other prisoners. The prisoner was allowed one toilet break. After an
hour-long court hearing, she made a 90-minute journey back to Styal. Global
Solutions, which operates a fleet of 400 prison vehicles, said
specifications were agreed with the Home Office. A spokesman said there was
provision for people with special needs, including pregnant women, and the
company was not aware of any complaints regarding the transport of pregnant
women.
Villawood Detention Centre, Sydney,
Australia
July
21, 2008 The Age
THE Immigration Department has referred allegations of drug use at
Villawood detention centre to NSW Police. The referral follows the
Opposition's attack on Immigration Minister Chris Evans for not seeking
immediate police involvement. Initially, Mr Evans said his department would
investigate the allegations raised by former pastoral worker Pauline Lovitt
and detainee Wilton Briggs. The Age reported last week that Ms Lovitt saw
detainees on "ice" and marijuana while working at Villawood from
March to last month, and believed staff were involved in selling them.
"It is a very good move," said Ms Lovitt of the Government's
response. "I do think it's in the best interests of the clients and
the staff." Mr Briggs, a New Zealander, has been under 24-hour
surveillance since raising the allegations last week. He said he was
threatened by a woman drug addict on Wednesday, because she was angry the
drug supply inside Villawood could be affected. The private company that
runs Villawood, GSL, has denied drug problems at the centre, despite
putting Mr Briggs under surveillance. Mr Briggs, 29, said the drug addict
threatened him and his partner and baby in Villawood's visitors' centre,
but GSL officers did not restrain her. Ms Lovitt said rehabilitation
programs to help people in withdrawal must be introduced if there were a
clampdown. She urged the Federal Government to overhaul Villawood's
management. Detainees turned to drugs because they were given no help with
their detention cases. Employees were under instruction not to help
detainees — to the point where church workers must sign documents not to
proselytise in case a detainee converted and it helped their case. Ms
Lovitt said resolving detainees' cases more quickly by offering them
lawyers, translators and information would save money. Labor's platform is
to move Villawood, Australia's biggest mainland detention centre, into public
management. It is yet to announce its plans for it.
July 18, 2008 Brisbane Times
A Villawood detainee injured in a rooftop "protest" at the Sydney
detention centre has been taken to hospital. The Department of Immigration
says the man, whose details could not be confirmed, was injured climbing
onto the roof about 2pm (AEST) Friday and again when coming down 20 minutes
later. Two members of centre's staff were also hurt as they tried to bring
him down. None of the injuries were said to be life-threatening. "The
decision was taken to assist him down from the roof and while (the staff)
brought him down they became caught in security wire," an immigration
spokesman told AAP. "One cut their finger and was treated on site. The
other had more serious injuries and was sent to hospital for further
treatment." The detainee was also taken to hospital. The immigration
spokesman said the incident was not a suicide attempt. The incident
occurred on the roof of Stage One of the centre, the highest security area
and the only part of the facility that has security wire. Jamal Daoud, a
member of the Refugee Action Coalition of NSW, was at the centre at the
time of the incident and said the atmosphere at the facility was
"depressing". "Many people there have been in detention for
more than six months, some more than two years," he said. "They
are just counting incidents like these and have reached their limit. They
are very depressed." Investigations are continuing.
July 17, 2008 The Age
A CALL for a police investigation into claims of drug use at Sydney's
Villawood detention centre has been dismissed. Immigration Minister Chris
Evans yesterday declined to respond to an Opposition call to bring in the
police. He referred comments to the Immigration Department, which said it was
handling the investigation, and urged people with information to go to the
police independently. Shadow immigration spokesman Chris Ellison said the
response was not good enough. "These are allegations of criminal
activities in our immigration detention centre," he said. "There
is a duty of care to those people who are held in immigration
detention." Pauline Lovitt, a former pastoral care worker at Villawood
who raised the allegations, said she was disappointed by Mr Evan's
response. She said she had seen detainees on "ice" and marijuana
while working there from March to June, and believed some staff were
involved in selling drugs. "The Government doesn't seem to be
concerned that people's lives actually get destroyed by drugs," she
said. "If someone is alleging there's a serious drug issue, they
should be looking at it seriously. "They must be crazy. It's quite
obvious when you walk in there and you talk to people that they are on
drugs. I don't know how you can pretend that they aren't." Ms Lovitt
said she was "quite prepared" to go to the police, and planned to
make a statement. She said she wrote to Mr Evans about the situation six
weeks ago, but he had not yet responded to her. Ms Lovitt's claims have
been backed by a current detainee inside Villawood, New Zealander Wilton
Briggs, 29. Another detainee contacted The Age anonymously yesterday to
support the allegations. Villawood is run by a private company, GSL, which
was granted an extension on its contract last year. The ALP's platform has
been to move Villawood into public management, but it has yet to clarify
its plans. A tender for Villawood's extension was put out in 2006. Senator
Ellison said the Government should urgently finalise the new contract,
given the allegations of drugs use. "The minister indicated at the
February Senate estimates hearings that he would be making an announcement
about the future of the detention centre management `shortly'," he
said. "It is now July, and we are yet to hear any announcement."
July 15, 2008 The Age
DRUG-TAKING is rife at Villawood detention centre and staff are
involved in selling drugs to detainees, a former employee says. The Federal
Government last night called an inquiry into allegations that detainees at
the nation's biggest detention centre were using drugs such as ice and
marijuana. In a submission to a parliamentary inquiry into Australia's
detention policies, former pastoral care worker Paula Lovitt said she had
been told by detainees that guards and visitors were bringing drugs and
alcohol into Villawood. Responding to the allegations, Immigration Minister
Chris Evans said last night: "I am naturally concerned about claims of
drug and alcohol use in the Villawood Immigration Detention Centre and have
asked the department to investigate." In her submission, Ms Lovitt has
urged the Government to introduce drug-testing for staff at the Sydney
centre and offer detainees rehabilitation programs. On her first visit to
Villawood's stage one maximum security area, she said, she was shocked to
see a Vietnamese detainee "totally out of it on drugs, apparently on
ice". "It's absolutely shocking in there, it's awful. It's dark
and dingy and they've got about six people in a room," she said of
stage one. "They all sit in there and smoke dope and a lot of them
won't come out at all." GSL, the private company running the centre,
said the comments were a "disgraceful slur". "There is no
drug problem among staff at Villawood," spokesman Tim Hall said.
"There is not a drug problem among detainees at Villawood. Some detainees
who arrived at Villawood on a methadone program continue with their program
under medical supervision." But Wilton Briggs, 29, a New Zealander
detained in Villawood, told The Age from Villawood last night: "There
is a huge drug problem here." He said some people became violent when
they could not get drugs and threatened other detainees and harassed them
for money. He said detainees were not protected by management. "There
is also no protection for stage one clients … There's no duty of care,"
said Briggs, who has a criminal history in NZ. Labor's platform has been to
put Villawood into public management. But GSL's contract was extended last
year. A tender has been put out for the contract. Senator Evans said the
Government would soon make an announcement about it. A Department of
Immigration spokesman said "prohibited substances" such as drugs
or alcohol had been confiscated four times at Villawood since December.
There have also been seven incidences of self harm and 13 hunger strikes.
Over the past year, there have been 108 assaults in all of Australia's
detention centres. Villawood has 210 detainees, of whom 189 are men and 21
women. They are a mix of former criminals awaiting deportation in the
maximum security stage one area, and people who have overstayed their visas
in stages two and three. Ms Lovitt said students who had overstayed their
visas could be thrown into stage one. She noted the case of a Chinese
student who was put in stage one after hitting another detainee in stage
two, but who had no criminal history. "This kid was absolutely beside
himself … he was not coming out of his cell at all because there's a person
in stage one from China who has committed two murders." Ms Lovitt, a
former librarian and prison ministry worker, was employed at Villawood from
March to June. She said she was compelled to speak out by the
"appalling" conditions. Many detainees in stage one turned to
drugs because of despair over their cases, she said. Ms Lovitt accused the
Department of Immigration of covering up the situation. She said a New
Zealand man was put into solitary confinement after being stabbed by a
fellow detainee, so "information did not get out about it".
"The officers are now bringing drugs to him because he said that's
what keeps him going," said Ms Lovitt. "GSL are trying to cover
up their behaviour and the Department of Immigration are trying to cover up
whatever is happening in there."
July 13, 2007 ABC
Ali Humayun in suing the Immigration Department for negligence after he
became a heroin addict inside Villawood. Ali Beg Humayun, a 26-year-old
Pakistani man, was detained in January 2005 after failing to comply with
the conditions of his student visa. Mr Humayun's lawyer, Roger de
Robillard, says the Department of Immigration and Australasian Correctional
Services Pty Ltd have breached their duty of care by placing Mr Humayun in
a room with a known heroin addict. He says Mr Humayun has also been
subjected to violence and harassment during his detention. Mr Robillard
also says that without any explanation, the centre's management took his
client off the anti-depressant medications prescribed to him, and refused
him access to a psychiatrist. Mr Humayun says the situation became
intolerable. "After going so long without my medicine, I couldn't take
it anymore. I broke down, I cracked," he said. "Drugs are
everywhere inside detention. Every day we get asked 'do you want some
heroin, want some dope, want some marijuana', and without my medication it
was so hard to stay away from it all." "Inside, most people end
up taking drugs in some form, because we use them to escape our situation.
It's hopeless." "I watched [my cell-mate] shoot-up every day. I
finally cracked and tried heroin and the next thing I knew I was addicted
to it." Mr Humayun says he continued to use the drug, with the
knowledge of some guards, for three months until he formed a relationship
with his current partner, Julio Lorenzo, a 41-year-old Spanish national who
was also being detained at Villawood. "The guards knew I was taking drugs,
they knew what was happening," he said. "Some [of the guards]
even offered me drugs." "I think they prefer that we are all on
them [drugs] because that way, we don't cause trouble. We just sit there
and we give up and we don't make a fuss and we don't keep fighting [to get
out]." Mr Humayun is now on a daily methadone program. A spokeswoman
for the Minister for Immigration, Kevin Andrews, has confirmed that the
case has been filed against the Department in the Supreme Court. Mr Andrews
has refused to give any further comment, saying that the matter is before
the courts.
March 20, 2006 The Age
AT LEAST two long-term immigration detainees — one held for 6½ years —
are in a psychiatric hospital after developing mental problems while in
detention, the Greens claim. The man who has spent more than six years in
detention, a 34-year-old from Bangladesh, was moved from Baxter detention
centre last August to Adelaide's Glenside psychiatric hospital. The other
man, whose family are Australian citizens, has been detained for more than
two years. "This period of time in detention makes this man another
Peter Qasim, the long-term detainee who was recently released after seven
years," Greens senator Kerry Nettle said. Their cases have been raised
by the Greens as up to 100 detainees at Sydney's Villawood detention centre
entered the fourth day of a hunger strike aimed at forcing the release of
mentally ill detainees held for more than two years.
March 3, 2006 Sidney Morning Herald
A DAY of turmoil in the nation's immigration system ended with the
Federal Government backing down on several fronts yesterday. It agreed to
pay damages to a boy traumatised in detention and allowed a deported
Melbourne man to return to Australia on humanitarian grounds. A damning
report released by an independent auditor yesterday also raised questions
about a successful 2003 bid by the immigration detention contractor GSL,
whose contract the Government refused to renew on Wednesday. In Sydney, an
11-year-old Iranian, Shayan Badraie, was offered damages for trauma he
suffered in Woomera and Villawood detention centres. The move comes after a
63-day Supreme Court hearing. While in detention between March 2000 and
August 2001, the boy became severely traumatised after witnessing riots, a
stabbing and a string of other disturbing incidents. He subsequently spent
94 days in hospital, and still requires treatment. Commonwealth lawyers
approached lawyers representing Shayan this week to offer a settlement for
damages. The exact sum will be fixed at a hearing this morning but is
expected to be more than $1 million. Meanwhile, the immigration detention
contractor GSL was found to have been hired even though it was more
expensive and provided inferior services to competitors, the National Audit
Office announced yesterday. GSL's bid was $32.6 million higher than that of
the incumbent detention centre operator, ACM, when the latter's bid
expired. The audit office found the basis on which ACM was paid $5.7
million after it missed out on the contract was "doubtful", since
the department was only required to compensate for matters pertaining to
detention. Immigration could not provide evidence of the criteria under
which the sum was paid. The audit also found the head of the steering
committee, which was heavily involved in the evaluation of the bids, gave a
reference for ACM's bid. An independent probity adviser told the steering
committee seven months later that this should not happen again.
December 30, 2005 ABC
Alarming new allegations have emerged from the Villawood detention centre
of intimidation and violence against detainees. Dozens of asylum seekers
have joined in accusing some staff members of behaving like thugs, taking
bribes and sanctioning criminal activity. The claims are the latest in a
string of complaints against contractors employed by the Department of
Immigration. Sixty-two Villawood detainees have signed a letter alleging
corruption and intimidation on the part of a staff member employed by
Global Solutions Limited.
December 30, 2005 The Age
Detainees at Sydney's Villawood detention centre have accused a senior
staff member of running a drug trafficking business. The claim is contained
in a letter signed by 62 detainees at the centre and forwarded to the
Commonwealth Ombudsman on behalf of an Indian man who they say has been
moved into maximum security for speaking out about the issue. The
immigration department said today they had not previously heard of the
allegations concerning the staffer, who is also accused of running an
illegal CD burning business. The letter names the person, but the
department would not be drawn on whether they would be subjected to an
internal review. The detainees say former Sydney taxi driver Harrinder
Kharbanda, 36, has been on hunger strike since he was forcibly removed from
his stage two cell on December 19 after trying to take some food into his
room. The letter says he is being unfairly punished for speaking out about
the alleged corrupt conduct of a senior staff member at the centre.
"He runs drug trafficking and an illegal CD burning business,"
the letter said of the staff member. "He often tries to intimidate the
detainees by threatening or assaulting us with the help of those officers
who work as a bunch of thugs. "His corrupt acts are well known among
the detainees in stage two and if someone tries to take some legal action,
he punishes the detainee by abusing his decision-making power and or
fabricating false reports about the person." The detainees call on the
federal government to intervene on behalf of Mr Kharbanda, who has spent
the past nine months in detention for overstaying his visa.
December 6, 2005 The Australian
A COURT will decide today whether the Immigration Department and a private
prison company acted criminally in employing detainees as "slave
labourers" and paying them in phone cards and cigarettes. Bangladeshi
asylum-seeker Motahar Hussein will put to the Federal Court a case alleging
that GSL, which runs the nation's detention centres, acted in contravention
of the Migration Act by illegally employing detainees under a "merit
system" classifying them as volunteers, to be paid the equivalent of
$1 an hour. Mr Hussein, a detainee at the Villawood detention centre in
Sydney for more than a year, will ask the Federal Court to grant orders
preventing GSL from employing detainees without rewards. He is also seeking
an injunction forcing the company to immediately cease its employment of
detainees under the volunteer system. Mr Hussein's case has prompted a
campaign by the union movement, which accused GSL of profiting from federal
government money intended to pay kitchen hands, cleaners, gardeners and
other providers for their services at detention centres. "Our
information is that the majority of workers are actually volunteers, so GSL
must be making a motza," said Unions NSW deputy assistant secretary
Chris Christodoulou. "They are taking unfair advantage of the poverty
and ignorance of the helpless detainees or refugees by paying them a paltry
$1 an hour in phone cards and cigarettes," Mr Hussein said. "Most
Australians would regard it as slave work." Mr Hussein said detainees
had no choice but to work, because visitors could not bring them more than
$10 a visit, there was no ATM within the detention centre to withdraw their
own money and the federal Government charged detainees about $130 a day to
stay there.
November 23, 2005 Green Left Weekly
I wasn't involved in the asylum seeker debate in 2001 when the government's
actions on Tampa were, in their opinion, decisive in getting them
re-elected. It was an accident of circumstance that my family was given a
voice this past year: we had an obligation to point out the hypocrisy of
having one set of rights for citizens and another for suspected
"illegals" who are left to rot for years in detention centres
without the rule of law to protect them. Even though it took months for all
the nasty specifics of Cornelia's treatment to emerge, the broader themes
were clear from the outset: the lack of morality - not to mention the
expense - of detaining innocent people and hiding them away in the desert;
the overall levels of secrecy; the farming out of detention centres to
for-profit corporations; the use of punitive isolation to control
behaviour; the unchecked power of ill-qualified immigration bureaucrats and
privately employed security guards; and the absence of judicial review. The
failures exposed by Cornelia's case have hardly been addressed. The reforms
emanating from Mick Palmer's inquiry into the wrongful imprisonment of
Cornelia have given a greater review role to the federal ombudsman (but
only after someone's been detained for two years) and many long-term
detainees are being quietly released. A couple of sports fields have been
added to Baxter and some of the razor wire in Villawood coming down with great
fanfare - only to be replaced by electrified fence. In detention centres,
the lack of palatable food has been a deeply felt source of contention. The
food issue, so seemingly trivial when compared with indefinite detention,
can lead to avoidable tension and abuses. This has not changed. Cornelia's
case: In early February, Cornelia was just another non-person in Baxter,
receiving no treatment for a florid psychosis. The rest of our family was
living in suburban obscurity. We were dragged into public life in early
February 2005 when the media became interested. Even before the government
announced the Palmer inquiry - only five days after Cornelia was identified
- we were getting calls from people with information about what had
happened to her during her brush with DIMIA. I was determined to expose the
more appalling misuses of power during Cornelia's time behind the wire,
much of it in punitive isolation. In the first few days, Senator Amanda
Vanstone's office put out various bits of misinformation about how
wonderful DIMIA had been to Cornelia and to us. No-one had contacted us. We
learned of the phantom medical care being given to detainees. There were
horrific cases of neglect: the young child with a broken thumb, which
turned purple and swollen in the week it took for him to get medical
attention; the man complaining of severe headaches who was fobbed off with
Panadol for two years until he collapsed one night between compounds and
started to turn blue after which he was finally rushed to hospital where
neurosurgeons operated for 12 hours to contain the burst aneurism. There
was the woman in Villawood in NSW who couldn't establish breastfeeding with
her newborn because guards were in her hospital room 24 hours a day. During
the delivery, a guard even gowned up to watch the caesarian, worried no
doubt, she might jump up from the table and abscond during the procedure.
There were stories of sexual assaults by guards, and in one case, a hastily
arranged abortion. Many of our interviewees were worried about
repercussions and asked for confidentiality. The former detainees and their
families were able to tell us how places like Baxter really worked in
practice, how the medical services that DIMIA described in such glowing
terms, breached the duty of care requirements. Interview transcripts and
court affidavits, including from DIMIA staff that flagrantly contradicted
the sort of eyewitness evidence we were getting, were passed onto the
university. One such chilling document was the "Behaviour Management Plan"
(BMP) from Global Solutions Limited (GSL, the company that runs Baxter
among other corrections institutions), which set out rules for detainees in
the punishment compound at Baxter, Red One. This is where Cornelia spent 94
days in a psychosis, which had been discerned by other detainees. Evidence
we were given showed GSL even flouted its own management plan for much of
the time Cornelia was in Red One. For example, detainees have to sign a
consent to the BMP before they enter the compound. Cornelia signed no such
document. Under the strictest stage of the plan, detainees are allowed four
hours out of their cell. In Cornelia's case, we were told by eyewitnesses
that on many days she was given only two hours' egress, or none at all. At
least on one occasion, Cornelia was punched in the chest so hard she fell
backwards into her cell so the guards could lock her inside. [Abridged from
a speech by Christine Rau, Cornelia's sister, to the Queensland Public
Interest Law Clearing House on October 18. For the full text see
<http://www.qpilch.org.au/>.]
October 26, 2005 The Age
THE Immigration Department may have unlawfully detained a person for more
than six years. The Commonwealth Ombudsman, John McMillan, is investigating
222 cases where people were released from immigration detention after they
were found to be lawfully in Australia. Meanwhile, six Chinese asylum
seekers at Villawood detention centre have been on a hunger strike for six
days, claiming that Chinese nationals are incarcerated longer than asylum
seekers from other countries. The Victorian Greens have accused the
Government of discriminating against Chinese asylum seekers because of its
close economic ties with China.
October 10, 2005 The Australian
A WOMAN in immigration detention underwent a cesarean section in a public
operating theatre with a security guard looking on. In what appears to be
one of the worst examples of the Howard Government's mandatory detention
policy at work, Heng Hak Kiang, 35, delivered her third child at Sydney's
Fairfield hospital with a female immigration guard present during the
surgery. A second officer from the Howard Government's privatised detention
centre security firm, Global Solutions Ltd, then spent four days guarding
Ms Heng in her room, according to a submission to a Senate inquiry into the
Migration Act. She was watched by two seated guards 24 hours a day for the
following four days, Ms Heng told The Australian. "Sometimes a guard
would talk. Sometimes one other guard would not say anything," Ms Heng
said.
September 8, 2005 Sidney Morning
Herald
Detainees at Villawood detention centre are being paid in cigarettes and
phone cards to do chores such as cleaning, gardening and food preparation
by the centre's private operators, GSL, a detainee has claimed. Motahar
Hussein alleges in letters to the Immigration Minister, Amanda Vanstone,
and the Australian Federal Police that detainees have had to work for the
equivalent of $1 an hour. Last night a spokesman for Senator Vanstone
denied any detainees were forced to work but a spokesman for the Department
of Immigration confirmed that inmates over the age of 15 were invited to
"engage voluntarily in useful and meaningful activities so that they
may contribute to the care of themselves and of the detainee
community". Detainees who did the activities, which the department
confirmed included the work outlined by Mr Hussein, are given "merit
points", which can be "exchanged" for items not freely
available in detention, such as cigarettes and phone cards. Mr Hussein said
it took a detainee an hour to earn $1 worth of merit points. He said the
centre's management, and departmental policy, in effect forced inmates to
work by restricting the amount of cash available to them. There is no ATM
in the centre and visitors are forbidden to give any inmate more than $10.
September 7, 2005 Sidney Morning
Herald
Staff at Villawood Detention Centre have paid a detainee with
cigarettes and telephone cards to carry out their work, a peak union body
says. Unions NSW today called for a full review of working conditions at
Villawood following claims from detainee Motahar Hussein that the detention
centre was profiting from detainees. Unions NSW deputy assistant secretary
Chris Christodoulou said he had written to Immigration Minister Amanda
Vanstone about Mr Hussein. "Mr Hussein alleges that contractors GSL
(Global Solutions Limited) and DNCA (Delaware North Companies Australia)
are using detainees to meet their contracts with the Department of
Immigration (DIMIA), including in food preparation, cleaning and the
library," he said. "Unions NSW is seeking clarification from the
Minister on whether this is true and if so, whether they are being paid in
cigarettes and phone cards, a breach of the Migration Act." Mr
Christodoulou said the detainees seemed to be treated worse than convicted
criminals. "In NSW we have a set of standards for prison labour and a
monitoring committee that ensures everything is above board," he said.
"Of equal concern is the prospect that DIMIA is awarding contracts to
companies who are using detainees in a way that may be in breach of its own
Migration Act. "Either way,
the Minister has some questions to answer."
August 23, 2005 The Age
A CHILD who was so traumatised by his time in detention centres that he
psychologically "shut down" will make legal history when he sues
the Government next week. Former child detainee Shayan Badraie, now aged
10, suffered post-traumatic stress after being exposed to riots and
witnessing suicide attempts and violence in detention. Since 1999, close to
3900 children have been held in detention centres across Australia. Some
have been born in detention. Many have been detained for years. The couple
are also suing Australian Correctional Services and Australian Correctional
Management, the operators of the Woomera and Villawood detention centres,
where Shayan was held for almost two years from the age of five. In May
2002, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission found that Shayan's
detention breached the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the
Child. It found Shayan's continuing detention was "unjust,
unreasonable and unproportional", and recommended the Government pay
the Badraie family $70,000 for Shayan's suffering and the costs of
continuing psychiatric counselling.
July 21, 2005 Sidney Morning Herald
Ian Hwang and his sister, Janie, arrive at Stanmore Public School. A
young boy who witnessed three attempted suicides after he was forcibly
removed from school and placed in immigration detention was
"traumatised by the horrors", his lawyer said today. Ian
Hwang, 12, and his six-year-old Australian-born sister Janie have been
released after more than four months at Villawood detention centre in
south-western Sydney. The children were removed from Sydney's
Stanmore Public School on March 8 after their mother Young Lee was arrested
for overstaying her visa. Lawyer Michaela Byers today said while she
was pleased the children had been released on bridging visas, they were
traumatised by their experiences inside. Ian would have a psychological
assessment next Monday to determine the extent of the "scarring",
Ms Byers said. "Ian saw three attempts at suicide inside, one
where a man swallowed a lot of bleach and another involving
self-laceration," she said. "There was a lot of
blood. "He was very distressed by it and he contemplated doing
it himself. "It was very, very upsetting (for him) to have that
happening around him."
June 11, 2005 The Australian
THE security tape showing the "reception" of Indian national
Pavan Kumar Tripuraneni at Villawood Immigration Detention Centre in Sydney
is dark and grainy. On tape the two officers who made up the reception
committee, Peter Warren and Shane Thomas, appear to move like people under
water. But what happens next is shown clearly enough for internal
investigator Peter Saxon, who analysed the tape and interviewed other
officers, to conclude that Warren, the senior officer on the scene, had
been involved in "an assault on a detainee" and that both he and
Thomas had engaged in "serious misconduct". Inquirer has obtained
a copy of the report into the incident by Saxon, a manager with Global
Solutions Ltd (usually known only as GSL), the company that operates the
detention centres for the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and
Indigenous Affairs. Saxon suggests that the alleged assault on Tripuraneni,
who ended up with a fractured wrist, could have rendered "at least one
officer subject to possible criminal proceedings". The general manager
at Villawood had reported the incident to police but the matter was dropped
after Tripuraneni was conveniently deported about two weeks later, in
September last year. Saxon recommended that Warren and Thomas face
disciplinary action. Though suspended on full pay for three months, both
went back to work in December, after the company decided "to
facilitate their return to duty". Immigration sources have suggested
that under its contract with DIMIA, GSL was fined under the contract for
the alleged assault on Tripuraneni. Then the company and the department
buried the whole thing. In another company document, national operations
manager Mike Ryan suggests that GSL cannot risk further disciplining
officers involved in an assault. "It is plain that any adverse
outcome, in particular their dismissal, would be vigorously tested in the
Industrial Relations Commission and our appreciation of any such action is
that the GSL position could not be sustained." What does this
admission mean? The reason the company couldn't risk sacking officers who
were alleged to have committed an assault was that it had failed to give
them any appropriate training for detention work. Saxon had reported as
much: "Neither Mr Warren nor Mr Thomas has yet undertaken the GSL ...
training." The training is specified in the detention services
contract between GSL and the department. When GSL won the detention centre
contract from another company, Australian Correctional Management,
effective early last year, it emphasised that its staff would be trained to
deliver humane administrative detention. But GSL is believed to have failed
to give initial training to 30 detention centre officers at Villawood who
were previously employed by ACM. Last year the Australian National Audit
Office analysed the contract between DIMIA and ACM. That contract ran for
about six years, "at a cost to the commonwealth of more than half a
billion dollars". But the ANAO audit found that there had been
astonishingly little forethought about the management of this contract. Its
report states: "DIMIA had not developed and documented a strategy for
its detention function, nor put in place a contract management plan. Other
than the contract itself, there was no documentation of the means by which
the detention objectives would be achieved. This meant that DIMIA was not
able to assess whether its strategies were actually working." But
there is little sign that DIMIA learned much from its unhappy experience
with ACM, judging by the standards set out in the present contract. Riddled
with inconsistencies, ambiguities and motherhood statements, it holds the
contractor to standards that probably can't be monitored. The performance
measure under the heading "dignity" states that "a
substantiated instance of a detainee being humiliated or treated
discourteously" will incur a fine of $10,000. What happens in the real
world of the detention centres is suggested by other tapes obtained by
Inquirer. The three videotapes document the treatment of Virginia Leong,
the Malaysian woman released from Villawood last month after three years in
detention. She was two months pregnant when she was detained. Initial
reports of her plight said psychiatrists had suggested that Leong and her
three-year-old daughter, Naomi, would be at risk if they remained in
detention. Left languishing in Villawood for years watching the child grow
listless and strange, the distraught Leong resorted to desperate measures.
About a year ago, she climbed on to the roof of the detention centre with
the child. The videotapes show what happened next. When she came down from
the roof, Leong, a slight-built woman hardly larger than a child, was
dragged along with her head held down by two large detention centre
officers. When they reached the management unit, Leong was pushed face-down
on the floor and a male officer about twice her size sat astride her,
tightly holding her hands behind her back as a nurse instructed Leong, who
was crying, to take Valium.
February 15, 2005 The Age
The Australian government has paid $25,000 compensation to a French
national held by immigration authorities without diplomatic representation,
the ABC reported today. The French government has lodged a formal complaint
about the treatment of Mohamadou Sacko, saying embassy officials were not
told about his detention and questioning in Sydney. But the embassy said it
has yet to receive a response to the complaint. Mr Sacko was held for
several days after arriving at Sydney airport 18 months ago to start an
English language course. He said on arrival he was detained on suspicion of
carrying a false passport and was taken to the Villawood detention centre.
Yarl's Wood, Benfordshire, England
October
23, 2009 BBC
Police can be sued for the estimated £42m damage caused during a riot
at a Bedfordshire immigration detention centre, the Court of Appeal has
ruled. The claim against Bedfordshire Police Authority by Yarl's Wood
Immigration Ltd (YWIL) and GSL Ltd was dismissed in the High Court last
year. Three appeal judges have now ruled that the 1886 Riot (Damages) Act
could be used in a claim. Almost half of the centre was destroyed by fire
in February 2002. The Act allows companies and individuals to sue the
police over loss caused by "any persons riotously and tumultuously
assembled together," the court heard. There will be a trial over
liability and the amount of damages at a future date in the High Court.
'Disappointing decision' -- Last year, a High Court judge ruled
Bedfordshire Police had done nothing wrong in deciding to stay on guard at
the detention centre's perimeter fence until invited on to the site by the
operators. The fire at the Yarl's Wood centre destroyed half the buildings.
Peter Conniff, chairman of Bedfordshire Police Authority, said:
"Obviously the authority is disappointed to learn of the appeal
court's decision, which rules that Group 4 and their insurers are entitled
to make a claim against the authority and our insurers under the Riot
Damages Act 1886. "This decision reverses that of the High Court last
year and there are obviously a number of legal issues that still need to be
considered. "However, I would like to reassure local taxpayers that
any successful claim against the authority will be met by our insurance and
not from the taxpayers' pocket. "It is likely that there will now be a
further hearing in the High Court in due course to consider the merits of
Group 4's claim. "But we cannot say more at this stage as the
authority and its insurers need to take stock of the position in the light
of this latest twist in the Yarl's Wood saga."
September 30, 2008 BBC
A claim against Bedfordshire Police for more than £42m for fire damage
after a riot at Yarl's Wood detention centre has been thrown out at the
High Court. Mr Justice Beatson dismissed the claim by Yarl's Wood
Immigration Limited, GSL UK (formerly Group 4), and their insurers. The claim
was made under the 1886 Riot (Damages) Act, which allows companies and
individuals to sue the police. The judge said police did nothing wrong in
staying outside until invited in. Almost half of the detention centre at
Clapham, Bedfordshire, was destroyed by fire on the night of 14 February
2002. 'Overlapping duties' -- Mr Justice Beatson said that the police had a
"fundamental duty" to maintain law and order. But Bedfordshire
Police had done nothing wrong in deciding to stay on guard at the detention
centre's perimeter fence until invited onto the site by the operators, he
said. The judge ruled that the 1886 Act was intended to compensate citizens
who suffered the effects of riot damage, not private contractors who were
exercising "public authority" over the detention centre for the
Home Office. It was not the intention of the 1886 Act to make one public
authority liable to another when they had overlapping duties to maintain
order, Mr Justice Beatson said.
October 4, 2006 Financial Times
Private contractors that run one of the government's detention centres for
asylum seekers have been sharply criticised by the country's top prisons'
watchdog. A report today on the treatment of detainees at Yarl's Wood,
north Bedfordshire - a 400-bed immigration removal centre run by Global
Solutions Limited under Home Office contract - finds healthcare was
"inadequate . . . undermined by a lack of needs assessment, weak audit
and clinical governance systems [and] in-adequate staff training". The
prison inspectorate's inquiry was ordered after two Ugandan refugees were
hospitalised following prolonged detention in Yarl's Wood. One of the women
was left traumatised and unable to speak. Anne Owers, chief inspector of
prisons, told the Financial Times that companies should be stripped of the
right to commission healthcare services in detention centres, and that the
job should pass to the NHS. "This should happen as soon as
possible," Ms Owers said. "Provisions [at Yarl's Wood] were not
in place for people with previous medical conditions . . . or for longer
stays in detention." Medical services at the centre are contracted out
by GSL to Veritas Management, a healthcare service provider. Veritas saidit
"provides detainees and dependent children at Yarl's Wood with access
to the same range and quality of services as the general public receives
from the NHS". Liam Byrne, Home Office minister for immigration,
agreed to Ms Owers' demand that all healthcare providers in detention
centres be re-quired to register with the Healthcare Commission, an
independent regulator. Officials said no decision on commissioning
arrangements had yet been reached. The contract to run Yarl's Wood expires
in April and has been put out to tender. GSL, which has reapplied, said:
"The staff at Yarl's Wood take their responsibilities for the care and
well-being of residents very seriously. A detailed contract agreed with the
Immigration Service specifies the service levels. These are monitored daily
by on-site Immigration Service personnel." Inspectors criticise the
Home Office's Immigration and Nationality Directorate, saying it was
unresponsive to clinical concerns regarding an alleged history of torture.
"The clinical review adds weight to a growing concern among medical
and other commentators that the increased use of immigration detention
raises serious concerns about the mental health of detainees," the
report says. Sophie Odogo, 35, and Enid Ruhango, 32, were detained at
Yarl's Wood from mid-2005 for eight and nine months respectively. Both say
they fled rape and torture in Uganda, claims substantiated by independent
medical examinations.
September 20, 2006 The Independent
The psychological effects of Britain's policy of locking up
asylum-seekers were demonstrated yesterday at an inquest into the death of
an Angolan man who took his life so that his teenage son might stay in
Britain. The inquest jury hearing the case of Manuel Bravo watched images
from CCTV cameras at the Yarl's Wood detention centre in Bedfordshire that
showed him leaving his room and hanging himself in a stairwell. His last
words to his 13-year-old son Antonio, who shared his room at Yarl's Wood
where they had been moved together 12 hours earlier, had been: "Be
brave. Work hard. Do well at school." Mr Bravo, whose case was highlighted
by The Independent last year, had walked into a library in Leeds, five
months before his death, and typed out a signed declaration of intent.
"I want to die or kill myself as I don't have any chances," he
wrote. "If I die I would like my son to stay with the Government, or
NSPCC, or youth protection in the UK." He did not pass the note,
discovered after his death, to friends. Within hours of his removal to
Yarl's Wood, Mr Bravo was composing a suicide note. "I do not have a
life any more," he wrote. "My son Antonio is to stay here in the
UK to continue his education. Antonio, I do not want you to go back to
Angola to suffer." The inquest, at Bedford coroner's court, asked
questions of Yarl's Wood's capacity to deal with individuals such as Mr
Bravo. He was not considered a suicide risk, despite arriving at the centre
with a rolled-up coil of washing line cord in his bag and a medical record
which revealed he had been on antidepressants, prescribed by a Leeds GP,
for months. He told custody officers that the cord was for "his own
protection" and they removed it, not thinking to mention it to the
centre's nurse, who later interviewed the father and son together. The
nurse told the inquest she would not have taken Mr Bravo's explanation for
the cord at "face value" and that it might have affected the way
she assessed his state of mind. The troubled history of Yarl's Wood *
November 2001: The £100m centre, the biggest in Europe at the time, opened
in Bedfordshire but was soon dogged with allegations of racism and brutality.
Global Solutions UK Ltd (GSL) - a division of Group 4 - insisted staff were
conscientious and professional. * February 2002: A riot, the worst at a
detention centre for 16 years, broke out and a fire destroyed half the
centre, causing £40m of damage. * November 2004: The Government's
"ambitious and unachievable" policy of doubling deportations of
failed asylum-seekers was blamed for the riot and fire according to an
inquiry report. It said the mishandling of a female detainee triggered the
disturbance. * June 2005: Zimbabwean women at the centre went on hunger
strike in protest at their imminent deportation. * July 2005: More than 30
Ugandan women went on hunger strike asking for their asylum claims to be
reconsidered and protesting at conditions, particularly lack of health
care. One mother described having to live with her six-year-old son in a
room so small it felt like a cage. * July 2005: Ann Owers, the chief
inspector of prisons, reported that children at Yarl's Wood were being
"damaged" by their experience. Inspectors found a five-year-old
autistic girl was so badly neglected she had not eaten properly for four
days. * December 2005: Al Aynsley-Green, the children's commissioner for
England, issued a report saying that children at the centre were being
denied basic rights, kept in prison-like conditions, fed junk food and
deprived of proper play facilities. * March 2006: Campaign groups including
the Refugee Council and Save the Children described the policy of detaining
children, mostly at Yarl's Wood, as inhumane. Many were left suffering
depression, nightmares and eating problems.
July 25, 2006 BBC
Children held at an immigration centre said they feared being killed,
according to the prisons watchdog. In a critical report on Yarl's Wood,
Chief Inspector of Prisons Anne Owers called for a "complete
overhaul" of the policy of detaining children. Ms Owers told the BBC
she had found no evidence child detention was subject to welfare checks
pledged by ministers. The sole social worker looking after children at the
Bedfordshire centre recently resigned, the report reveals. Ms Owers sent an
unannounced team of inspectors to the Bedfordshire removal centre in
February 2006, a year after a critical report into the institution. Yarl's
Wood is a centre used to hold families - usually failed asylum seekers -
prior to deportation. The chief inspector said the team had come away with
considerable concerns. "We were concerned about decisions to detain
not taking into account the welfare of the child and also decisions in
detention not taking into account assessments about the welfare of
children," said Ms Owers. "There was a social worker in place and
she was doing [child welfare] assessments but nobody knew what to do with
them, either in the centre or the immigration authorities who make
decisions about detention. In fact, she later resigned." Children
interviewed by the 10-strong team talked of an "intimidatory
environment", said Ms Owers. Some said they feared they would be
killed, while one 10-year-old felt like a "species in danger". A
13-year-old told of being handcuffed in transit, while three spoke of
vomiting in vans. "There was a 10-year-old saying the officers were
tall and scary and their shoes were big and noisy," Ms Owers told the
BBC. "We had a nine-year-old saying that when they came into the room
at night to do roll checks, her little brother was so scared he fell out of
bed because of a stranger coming into his room."
September 16, 2005 The Independent
A man held at an immigration detention centre with his 13-year-old son
hanged himself yesterday. The failed asylum-seeker, who has not been named,
was discovered by staff in the family unit and was rushed to hospital. He
died soon after arriving. Anti-deportation campaigners said the man was a
35-year-old Angolan who had been living in Leeds with his son before they
were taken to the Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre, in Bedfordshire.
The death at the centre, built to house 900 detainees, comes at a time when
30 Ugandan women being held there are on hunger strike. Anti-deportation
campaigners are organising a demonstration outside the centre, run by GSL
Ltd, a private company, on Saturday.
|
