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Thanks to Martin Rowson (click image to enlarge).
"Accidental Death" of a Young Black Londoner, The Case of Rashan Charles
26 November 2020 openDemocracy
A short documentary film on a death by police restraint. By Clare Sambrook and Rebecca Omonira-Oyekanmi
New evidence, fresh questions about death of young Black Londoner Rashan Charles
26 November 2020 openDemocracy
Police claimed the man who helped an officer restrain and handcuff Rashan Charles was "a member of the public" with no police connection. CCTV evidence raises doubts. A Shine A Light exclusive (distressing content). By Clare Sambrook and Rebecca Omonira-Oyekanmi
REVEALED: The Brexit-backing businessmen taking control of England's schools
11 December 2019 openDemocracy
Some of Britain's richest men have deployed their wealth, power and influence to push Brexit, shrink the state and take education out of public hands. By Clare Sambrook and Warwick Mansell
"Fit to fly?" Woman awaiting spinal surgery is fit to be deported, controversial doctor tells UK Home Office
28 November 2019 openDemocracy
Judges have severely criticised medical assessments by Dr John W. Keen and his company NowMedical, but UK immigration authorities continue to rely on him.
A short piece on the "accidental death" of young black Londoner Rashan Charles
22 July 2019
Shine A Light marks the second anniversary of a contentious death under police restraint. (Warning, distressing content).
Were the Stansted 15 right to stop a UK deportation flight?
6 February 2019 openDemocracy
While activists learned they would not be jailed for grounding a plane, another deportation flight took off.
'He could not breathe': Remembering Jimmy Mubenga, eight years on
26 October 2018 CEASEFIRE
In October 2010, Jimmy Mubenga, a 46-year-old father of five, died on a British Airways plane at Heathrow after being restrained violently by G4S guards. Eight years on, his death continues to speak volumes about structural injustice, institutional racism, and state and corporate impunity.
Police watchdog omits 3 contentious deaths from record-breaking count of deaths in custody
25 July 2018 openDemocracy
Exclusive: Annual count of police custody deaths in England and Wales hits 23, an 11-year high. But deaths of Rashan Charles, Shane Bryant and Edson Da Costa are excluded from the headline figure.
'Accidental death' of young black Londoner under police restraint. Rashan Charles Explainer.
23 June 2018 openDemocracy
Police video evidence missing. Former long-serving Metropolitan Police
officers presented as "independent" experts. Coroner gives contentious
directions to inquest jury. The troubling case of Rashan Charles. By Clare
Sambrook and Rebecca Omonira-Oyekanmi.
'We've done you proud' Families speak after NHS Trust fined £2million over patient deaths
26 March 2018 openDemocracy
Today Southern Health was fined £2m over the "entirely preventable" deaths of 18-year-old Connor Sparrowhawk and Teresa Colvin, aged 45. By Clare Sambrook and Sara Ryan.
Connor Sparrowhawk: How one boy's death in NHS care inspired a movement for justice
29 November 2017 openDemocracy
The story of a UK campaign for truth and accountability. And respect for the lives of people who have learning disabilities. Review and report by Clare Sambrook. Extract by Sara Ryan.
On the lethal restraint of young black Londoner, Rashan Charles
9 August 2017 openDemocracy
The police claimed that an officer intervened to prevent a young man from harming himself. Video evidence suggests a different story. (warning: distressing)
Rashman: Police watchdog to investigate lethal restraint of young black man in Hackney
23 July 2017 openDemocracy
Police claim officer "intervened" to "prevent the man from harming himself". But video shows sustained restraint. (warning: distressing)
Child was held for a staggering 151 days in men's immigration lockup Morton Hall in Lincolnshire
21 March 2017 openDemocracy
Today's inspection report reveals that children were detained among 400 adults. One detainee had been convicted of multiple offences against children. (See also: 'People come in here normal, but they get ill')
£190K payoff for ex-chief of NHS Trust that failed to investigate hundreds of unexpected deaths
7 October 2016 openDemocracy
Why Katrina Percy had to go.
British security company G4S confirms that Florida shooter is one of their own
13 June 2016 openDemocracy
• Omar Mateen, who killed 50 people in gay nightclub, was employed as armed guard by G4S.
• G4S guards have killed before.
• Company sells its expertise in vetting staff.
G4S suspends 5 staff over alleged attempts to massage 999 response figures
23 May 2016 openDemocracy
Commercial partners G4S and Lincolnshire Police are jointly investigating fake emergency calls that made outsourcing look good.
On Connor Sparrowhawk's avoidable death
14 April 2016 openDemocracy
A leaked document reveals that an NHS England Trust knew of failings 10 months before a young man died in its care.
openDemocracy writers longlisted for Orwell Prize
28 March 2015 openDemocracy
Rebecca Omonira-Oyekanmi and Clare Sambrook are among 15 writers in contention for one of journalism's highest honours.
Could Ministry of Justice & Grayling be prosecuted for manslaughter over prison suicides?
10 March 2015 openDemocracy
In just 12 months, 89 prisoners in England and Wales took their own lives. What is the government doing about it?
The racist texts. What the Mubenga trial jury was not told
17 December 2014 openDemocracy
Jimmy Mubenga died under restraint by three G4S guards. Extreme racist texts found on two of the guards’ phones were withheld from the jury who yesterday cleared all three men of manslaughter. (Warning: this piece contains highly offensive language)
Suicide, murder, despair. Coalition government makes its mark on prisons
21 November 2014 openDemocracy
Justice minister Chris Grayling is imposing a ‘more Spartan’ prison regime, with deadly consequences.
• 88 prisoner suicides in one year in England and Wales
• Chief Inspector of Prisons to be replaced in 2015
• Spending on food cut to £1.96 per prisoner per day (that’s £1.96 in total, breakfast, lunch and dinner)
G4S private army of Gurkhas wins medals for gallantry in Kabul
3 September 2014 openDemocracy
• Honour citation sheds light on security industry's role in 'War on Terror'
• G4S Gurkhas deployed against environmental protesters in the UK
Nice work: G4S wins $118 million Guantánamo contract
13 August 2014 openDemocracy
G4S, the UK government outsourcer that supports Israeli security services on the West Bank, will serve Guantánamo Bay Naval Base.
Gove's own Operation Trojan Horse: the privatisation of our schools
16 July 2014 openDemocracy
Yesterday education minister Michael Gove was demoted to the post of chief whip. His covert privatisation of schools across England goes on.
Love is not all you need, says Court of Appeal: can you afford to love a migrant?
15 July 2014 openDemocracy
Harsh UK immigration rules deprive couples of their right to family life unless they earn at least £18,600 per year — more if they have children. And that's all right, says the Court of Appeal.
One Man, Two Guvnors: the conflict at the heart of British justice
10 July 2014 openDemocracy
Yesterday Chris Grayling, who is both Minister of State for Justice (dismantling the legal aid system) and Lord Chancellor (sworn to uphold the rule of law), gave evidence before the House of Commons Justice Committee.
Coroner: prisoner got ‘sub-optimal care’ at G4S Oakwood Prison
30 June 2014 openDemocracy
• For almost an hour after Steve Ham was found unresponsive, G4S guards failed to call an ambulance
• Panic, inexperience, understaffing and lack of transparency exposed at UK's flagship private prison
• “An excellent model for the future of the Prison Service,” said justice minister Chris Grayling when Oakwood opened
Can you afford to fall in love with a migrant?
12 June 2014 openDemocracy
How the UK's immigration rules deprive couples of their right to family life.
One life in investigative journalism
17 April 2014 openDemocracy
Clare interviewed by Rebecca Omonira-Oyekanmi, writer-in-residence at Lacuna.
Man loses job. What next? (He's G4S's Nick Buckles, by the way)
15 April 2014 openDemocracy
What happens after a government outsourcer fails shareholders and the public, and the boss loses his job? Nick Buckles gets £1,200,000 — and a pension of more than £400,000 a year.
Fail and prosper: how privatisation really works
6 March 2014 openDemocracy
Want to make £10 million and more? Become an accountant. Learn how to make austerity pay.
Is the Death of a Detainee a story? It depends where they’re from
24 January 2014 openDemocracy
The horrible death of Canadian Alois Dvorzac in UK immigration detention was big news. What if he'd been from Eritrea or Zaire?
Man, 84, dies handcuffed in hospital: UK border control by the GEO Group
16 January 2014 openDemocracy
A shocking report on Harmondsworth, the British immigration lock-up run by GEO, America's second biggest prisons contractor. Who are the GEO Group and what do they stand for?
Corruption? Delusion? Britain's botched privatisation of asylum housing
10 January 2014 openDemocracy
UK spending watchdog confirms mismanagement in outsourcing to G4S and Serco. Report casts doubt on public servants' ability to scrutinise powerful contractors..
G4S guard bludgeoned woman to death
30 October 2013 openDemocracy
That's G4S, experts in "robust employee screening". A murder conviction in Glasgow raises fresh doubts about a government outsourcer's competence and integrity.
The truth about sexual abuse at Yarl's Wood detention centre
29 October 2013 openDemocracy
What is the British government really doing to protect immigration detainees from their guards?
Jimmy Mubenga and the shame of British Airways
12 October 2013 openDemocracy
Three years after the unlawful killing of a passenger in its care, why hasn't British Airways held an inquiry into what went wrong? What are the consequences of its inaction?
G4S: A tale of two troubled prisons
7 October 2013 openDemocracy
Privatisation's flagship African jail is beset by kidnap, rape and stabbings. In Oakwood Prison, England, hooch, drugs and violence thrive. What's the problem? For-profit prisons? Or G4S?
UK government deports sexual assault witnesses
1 October 2013 openDemocracy
Witnesses to alleged sexual abuse at Yarl's Wood detention centre are being put on a mass deportation flight to Pakistan, leaving tonight.
Strip-searched in Derbyshire
1 October 2013 openDemocracy
Police officers across England are strip-searching people for no good reason.
It's all right for Michael Gove
11 September 2013 openDemocracy
The UK education minister blames food bank clients for their poverty. The man himself takes, time and time again.
JULY: Court rejects UK gov attempt to send transplant patient to her death — AUGUST: 'Free at last'
9 August 2013 openDemocracy
JULY: Rejoicing in Yorkshire as Home Secretary is denied her wish to deport Roseline Akhalu to Nigeria. AUGUST: Akhalu granted leave to remain.
G4S guard fatally restrains 15 year old - gets promoted
22 July 2013 openDemocracy
What to do with a 100 kg guard who fatally restrains a 40 kg boy? Promote him to health & safety manager, G4S children's homes. Behind the corporate image at G4S Children's Services, responsible for some of Britain's most vulnerable children.
G4S conceals identity in children's homes planning applications
22 July 2013 openDemocracy
The world's biggest security company hides its identity in applications to convert houses into children's homes in England.
Lord Ramsbotham attacks 'perverse' decision not to prosecute G4S over Mubenga death
10 July 2013 openDemocracy
JULY 2013: Crown Prosecution Service reconsiders decision not to prosecute G4S.
JULY 2012: Ramsbotham, former chief inspector of prisons, condemns original CPS decision not to prosecute. Peers describe UK Border Agency culture of disbelief, its abuse of torture victims, denial of legal representation, dawn raids on pregnant mothers, the perils of outsourcing, ‘loutish and aggressive’ behaviour, and that’s not all . . .
Who is that man in the Lord Chancellor's seat?
3 July 2013 openDemocracy
• Justice minister making savage cuts lined his pockets from Parliamentary expenses
• MPs grill Chris Grayling over plans to destroy Legal Aid
• Grayling acknowledges 'ideological' motivation.
MPs on Justice by Tesco, Stobart & G4S
2 July 2013 openDemocracy
A debate the government did not want to happen. House of Commons resists Coalition attack on Legal Aid.
Read on
Broken bones and stab wounds: rising violence at G4S-run Birmingham jail
28 June 2013 openDemocracy
Steep rise in attacks on staff and prisoners at run-for-profit Winson Green prison.
Eddie Izzard, Bill Gates, little orphans — and why charity may yet imperil G4S
19 June 2013 openDemocracy
As the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation increases its stake in G4S, Dutch charities recoil from the world's leading security company. (joint byline with Adri Nieuwhof)
G4S and their human rights problem
6 June 2013 openDemocracy
Protesters disrupt security company's annual meeting. A jury questions the death of a detainee. Spooks and Big Money mingle with ministers at Bilderberg. Scenes from a Le Carré novel? A difficult day for security giant G4S . . .
Olympic bunglers G4S recruit for Hillsborough inquiry
30 May 2013 openDemocracy
Outsourcing giant G4S seeks retired police officers to investigate Britain's worst football disaster — for £14 an hour.
Woolwich: Lord Reid, the security industry's salesman
23 May 2013 openDemocracy
Former Home Secretary John Reid exploits a brutal murder to revive the Snoopers' Charter.
Outsourcer Nick Buckles retires at 52, a multimillionaire
22 May 2013 openDemocracy
Security company G4S and its executives have got rich dismantling public services.
Champagne for Serco shareholders, 23 hour lock-ins for Serco prisoners
15 May 2013 openDemocracy
Serco shareholders gather in the City of London today to celebrate financial success. Just across the river, Britain's newest private prison HMP Thameside, run by Serco, is failing.
Another G4S scandal: UK's privatised asylum housing market is falling apart
19 March 2013 openDemocracy
The sensitive work of housing vulnerable asylum seekers appears to be defeating the world’s biggest security company. A leaked letter from G4S director (a former Rentokil executive) illuminates the unfolding crisis.
A few days left to prevent UK transplant patient’s perilous removal to Nigeria
14 November 2012 openDemocracy
Public support ahead of 21 November appeal hearing may be Roseline Akhalu’s last hope.
For recent news on this case, please visit OurKingdom and type Roseline Akhalu into the search engine.
Corrupt and ‘reckless’ Kellogg Brown & Root still in the running for UK police contracts
13 November 2012 openDemocracy
Ahead of Police & Crime Commissioner elections in the UK, a negligence verdict in Oregon intensifies pressure to keep tainted contractor KBR out of UK policing.
Conflicting accounts of death at a London immigration lock-up
7 November 2012 openDemocracy
Inmates at Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre claim employee of commercial contractor GEO beat immigration detainee and left him naked in an unheated room. Police say there are no suspicious circumstances.
Beyond the G4S Olympic fiasco: what now for the world's largest security company and its critics?
31 August 2012 openDemocracy
The Olympic debacle was just one in a history of serious cases of negligence.
Lord Ramsbotham, former chief inspector of prisons, attacks 'perverse' decision not to prosecute G4S over Mubenga death
20 July 2012 openDemocracy
A terrible day for the UK Border Agency, as Peers describe its culture of disbelief, its abuse of torture victims, the denial of legal representation, dawn raids on pregnant mothers, the perils of outsourcing, ‘loutish and aggressive’ behaviour, deaths by G4S, and that’s not all . . .
G4S Olympic fiasco: British soldiers are the ‘people pipeline’ now
17 July 2012 openDemocracy
Multimillionaire government ministers, close to G4S chief executive Nick Buckles, are a world away from weary soldiers drafted in to rescue the Olympics.
The UK Border Agency's long, punitive campaign against children (helped by G4S and Serco)
16 July 2012 openDemocracy
Clare Sambrook’s exposé of the Border Agency’s abuse of children and its relentless misrepresentation of evidence of harm.
Citizens fighting £1.5 billion police privatisation highlight security companies’ human rights violations
11 July 2012 openDemocracy
As G4S and Serco, both accused of human rights abuses, bid for a contract tendered by two English police authorities, protestors rally to pressure the West Midlands Police Authority to reject the bids on grounds of 'grave misconduct'.
G4S teaches UK Border Agency how to care for children
10 July 2012 openDemocracy
It’s no joke — the world’s biggest security company is training immigration staff in “Keeping Children Safe”.
• G4S "invited" to deliver training without competition.
• UK Border Agency executives "delighted" and "couldn't have been more complimentary".
• G4S has record of harming children and adults in its care.
Controversial doctor and Barnardo’s serve UK’s flawed child detention policy
15 June 2012 openDemocracy
Cracks show in ‘compassionate approach’ to locking up children for the sake of administrative convenience.
How many children secretly deported under UK Border Agency’s Gentleman’s Agreement?
7 June 2012 openDemocracy
When heartless illegality is official Government policy.
Like it or not, G4S is securing your world
6 June 2012 openDemocracy
Clare Sambrook’s award-winning reporting and analysis on G4S has been followed by, among others, the BBC, The Times, The Guardian and The New York Times. OurKingdom launches the G4S collection.
UK policymaking outsourced: the curious case of adoption reform
26 May 2012 openDemocracy
Breathtaking collusion between ministers, special advisers and Rupert Murdoch’s lieutenants is being dragged into the light by the Leveson inquiry. Where else is policy being created by cabal?
Is the UK Government fattening up defence logistics for the private sector?
24 April 2012 openDemocracy
Is the Government neglecting to scrutinise what Ministry of Defence officials are doing? Or is lack of scrutiny a deliberate and necessary part of the privatisation process?
Corporate Power stamps its brand on British Policing
14 April 2012 openDemocracy
The end of the British Bobby? Is policing by corporate power replacing policing by consent? G4S, the world's largest security company, takes over Lincolnshire Police.
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Who should investigate murder — the police, or a private security company?
13 April 2012 openDemocracy
Security company G4S recruits "outstanding investigative officers" to run murder investigations in the UK for £25,000-a-year.
Lord West of Primetake
12 March to 5 April 2012 Private Eye (issue 1310)
“When I was a minister in the Home Office I was shocked at how little co-ordination there was across police forces in terms of procurement,” Lord West of Spithead told Peers. Conveniently, he is a strategic adviser to Primetake, supplier to the UK armed forces, police and prison service!
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How official lying harms our democracy
16 February 2012 UK Parliament
A submission to the House of Lords Communications Committee inquiry into the future of investigative journalism.
Invited to appear before the House of Lords Communications Committee on 11 October 2011, Clare exposed examples of ministerial lies, government’s burial of medical evidence and the routine fabrication upon which the child detention policy is based. Clare’s written submission records systematic official mendacity and calls for a restoration of respect for information and harsher sanctions against Parliamentarians and civil servants who mislead the public. “The role of government and local government press officers should be to serve the public with truth, not to serve ministers by spinning to the public,” Clare writes. “Every press release and public statement issued by officials should be signed off by an official who takes responsibility for the accuracy of the information.”
The Committee’s report, “A secure future for investigative journalism”, 16 February 2012, cites Clare’s evidence and includes this recommendation: “We encourage the Government to lead by example in ensuring its press releases do not mislead.”
See also: Clare’s submission to the Committee as published by openDemocracy (PDF).
All the written evidence to the Lords inquiry (PDF).
Anthony Barnett, “Official lying in the UK: what child detention reveals about how we are governed”, openDemocracy 21 November 2011, and Niki Seth-Smith, “A small victory for transparency: the House of Lords report on investigative journalism”, openDemocracy 16 February 2012.
Respect and suicide prevention at the UK Border Agency
14 February 2012 openDemocracy
“Staff did not carry anti-ligature knives,” inspectors found on their unannounced visit last October to Waterside Court in Leeds, one of the UK Border Agency’s holding facilities for immigration detainees. What’s more, escort staff at the commercial contractor Reliance Security “had difficulty in locating anti-ligature knives and one van did not have a knife at all”.
Lord Reid of G4S
27 January to 9 February 2012 Private Eye (issue 1306)
“The best protection against misuse or fraud on cyber issues is biometric protection,” Lord Reid informed the House of Lords. That’s good for Reid’s paymasters G4S who are big players in . . . biometrics!
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The truth about health “reform”: it's the demolition of the NHS
27 January 2012 openDemocracy
Faith groups and charities must join the medical profession in strong, relentless and effective opposition to the government's wrecking of the NHS.
A child, a bleeding anus, interrogation by the UK Border Agency
17 January 2012 openDemocracy
Child B is apprehended after landing in Dover. He is subjected to something called a “welfare interview” and asked “Are you in any pain?” Yes, he says. The little finger on his left hand is in a splint. He is bleeding from his anus. His interrogator writes that Child B has been prescribed “Petadine” by doctors in Belgium. The boy is asked if he wants to see a doctor now in Dover. Yes, he says. But he doesn’t see a doctor. That was just a question on the form.
Beyond our Keen
9-22 December 2011 Private Eye (issue 1303)
Questions are being asked about the appointment of “independent doctor” John W. Keen to a UK Border Agency advisory panel supposed to “safeguard and promote the welfare of children” facing detention and removal.
Cedars House rules
9-22 December 2011 Private Eye (issue 1303)
How Barnardo’s fights for detained children’s interests. Or, rather, doesn’t.
“Duty of care” vs “earnings per share”: private contractors in the UK immigration removals business
7 July 2011 openDemocracy
“We have always operated to the highest possible standards of safety and welfare for those people in our care,” said G4S, the security giant in whose care Jimmy Mubenga died after “restraint”, Aboriginal elder Mr Ward was slowly cooked to death, and a five-year-old (unlawfully detained) was frisked by a latex-gloved employee saying: “You’re a big boy now, so I have to search you”.
Frisk the 5 year old: the UK Government’s new compassionate approach to child detention
6 July 2011 openDemocracy
“You’re a big boy now so I have to search you,” said the G4S custody officer to the five-year-old, donning latex gloves and patting him down at a Heathrow Airport detention facility run by outsourcing giant G4S.
The PFI wealth machine
22 June 2011 openDemocracy
The Private Finance Initiative has recklessly transferred billions from UK taxpayers to private financiers. Now we’re nicely asking for a little bit of our money back.
G4S locks up the captive market
21 June 2011 Private Eye (issue 1291)
Congratulations to G4S, the gigantic ‘Securing Your World’ security company that has made sales of £4.2 billion to the Minister of Justice alone.
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Duty of Care: beyond the case of Mr Ward, cooked to death by outsourcer G4S
8 June 2011 openDemocracy
The horrible death of a respected Aboriginal elder casts doubt upon often-unchallenged assumptions about the virtues of privatization.
Oranges and Sunshine: Barnardo's must learn from past mistakes
1 April 2011openDemocracy
The film 'Oranges and Sunshine' tells of the thousands of British children forced into migration to the Commonwealth in the 1880s. Barnardo's played a part. Today, the children's charity faces accusations of collusion with the government over child detention.
Voices from the military abyss – An introduction to The Skinback Fusiliers
28 March 2011 openDemocracy
Clare Sambrook, Rosemary Bechler & Niki Seth-Smith
openDemocracy and OurKingdom are proud to serialise The Skinback Fusiliers, a fast, funny and deeply disturbing novel about life in the British army seen through the eyes of three young men.
A child prisoner, a Santa suit and a Border Agency out of ministerial control
3 February 2011 openDemocracy
In this morning’s Independent Andrew Grice reveals that the UK Border Agency locked up an 11-year-old girl on Christmas Day in defiance of deputy prime minister Nick Clegg’s promise that no child would be so detained at Christmas.
As recently as 10 January the Home Office falsely claimed that no child had been detained at Christmas. Besides making deputy prime minister Nick Clegg look a deceiver and a Grade A twit, this story betrays UK Border Agency incompetence and contempt for democratic process, proving yet again that it is not fit to be entrusted with children’s care.
The importance of being adversarial
25 January 2011 UNHCR.ORG
Why are some big organizations so scared of being adversarial? What are their well-paid press officers getting into the media? If the answer is 'not much' or 'tame stuff' then they're failing the public who fund them and failing the vulnerable people whose interests they are supposed to be championing.
Man or mouse? Keith Vaz should demand urgent reform of the UK Border Agency
11 January 2011 openDemocracy
‘Much of the delay in concluding asylum and other immigration cases stems from poor quality decision-making when the application is initially considered,’ says Keith Vaz, chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee whose latest report on the UK Border Agency’s work is published today.
Two cheers for Vaz and the HASC! It might be three if only they were clearer and more forceful in their criticism of an agency whose deficiencies are systemic and rooted in a culture characterised by denial and deceit.
Child detention — mind the gap between rhetoric and reality
1 January 2011 Liberal Democrat Voice
‘Today marks a big culture shift within our immigration system,’ said Nick Clegg two weeks ago, announcing plans purporting to end child detention. ‘That practice, the practice we inherited, ends here,’ he said.
Sadly, it didn’t end there.
Mind the gap! Coalition claims and reality for child detention
31 December 2010 openDemocracy
When Nick Clegg announced two weeks ago, ‘Today marks a big culture shift within our immigration system,’ I was struck by a vivid image of horses struggling to push carts. A big culture shift is exactly what is needed at the Home Office, but there is no sign of its happening any time soon.
Five years of denial. UK Gov’s reckless pursuit of a punitive asylum policy — never mind the evidence of harm
15 December 2010 openDemocracy
Maybe deputy prime minister Nick Clegg is poised to end for good the scandal of child detention by the immigration authorities in his pre-Christmas statement. Maybe not.
Perhaps they’re making Clegg the bagman for the latest load of Home Office trickery regarding a policy that for years has been characterised by both brutality and deceit. I hope not.
But this is a moment to gather together the shameful evidence of the last five years so that it will not be forgotten.
Children’s final exit from the house of nightmares
27 November 2010 Times
One day last year a young woman walked into the police station of her northern town to sign in, as the immigration authorities required her to do fortnightly. It was a Monday. As usual she left her two-year-old son playing with friends. This time she did not return to collect him.
Investigative journalism & End Child Detention Now
24 November 2010 BBC Radio 4 Media Show
Having won the Paul Foot Award and the Bevins Prize for her investigations into child detention, Clare Sambrook talks with Steve Hewlett about the campaign.
Clare wins again! ‘Investigative Comment’ and the future of journalism on the web
9 November 2010 openDemocracy By Anthony Barnett
Clare Sambrook has just won the Bevins Prize for Investigative Journalism, as well as scooping up the Paul Foot Award last week, both of them for her stories exposing the scandal of child detention in Britain. It is a terrific recognition of her and her team of unpaid fellow campaigners at End Child Detention Now. openDemocracy is proud of being her main publisher, in our UK section OurKingdom. Her reports are listed here.
It is the first time that either award has gone to journalism primarily published on the web. The changing balance between the new and mainstream media, much chattered about, is now becoming real. In the process the nature of journalism is being changed. For the better.
Meet G4S, Government’s untouchable friend
15 October 2010 openDemocracy
The Guardian’s disturbing revelations about the final fatal journey of Angolan Jimmy Mubenga in the care of Home Office contractor G4S have sent a chill through migrant networks. The name resonates.
At G4S-run Tinsley House last October a 10 year old asylum-seeker who had been forcibly arrested and locked up, let go, arrested and locked up again, got predictably distressed and tried to strangle herself.
This year, in March, a report by Baroness Nuala O’Loan into allegations of abuse by G4S and other contractors found, ‘inadequate management of the use of force by the private sector companies’, and made 22 recommendations for change.
Clegg’s back-track on detention
1 to 14 October 2010 private eye (issue 1272)
‘After Labour’s decade-long assault on civil liberties . . . we’ve scrapped child detention in the immigration system,’ boasted Nick Clegg in a begging letter to supporters just before the Lib Dem’s party’s conference. Alas this was not true.
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Please ensure they end child detention
15 September 2010 liberal democrat voice
Liberal Democrats are understandably confused about whether child detention is ending or not.
Nick Clegg got the commitment to end child detention into the Coalition Agreement. Only last Thursday Sarah Teather promised: ‘Rest assured. It will be done.’
She also said: ‘We have to be careful not to rush into this as we are dealing with the safety and well-being of often vulnerable children and it is essential it is done properly.’
Quite how children’s safety might be served by not rushing to end a practice proven to wreck their lives is a mystery that suggests leading Liberal Democrats have been gulled by the detention enthusiasts at the Home Office.
State-sponsored cruelty
The Liberal Democrats must fight to salvage their promise to end the detention of children for immigration purposes in the UK.
13 September 2010 openDemocracy
Ask Boy A what he is scared of and he says dogs, strangers and policemen. He is scared to go outside and play with friends. At night he wets his bed. He cannot sleep without his mother. He is nine years old.
At their autumn conference this weekend Liberal Democrats wanting to rescue their end child detention pledge from Home Office sabotage will find ammunition in a chilling new report from Medical Justice.
Double detention
20 August to 2 Sept 2010 private eye (issue 1269)
No wonder security company G4S was ‘disappointed’ with the news that the government is to close Oakington immigration detention centre, where a 40-year-old asylum seeker collapsed and died amid claims that he had been denied swift medical help.
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Homer’s oddity
9 to 20 July 2010 private eye (issue 1266)
Amid mounting political concern about child detention just before the General Election, UKBA granted private contractors Serco a contract to carry on running Yarl’s Wood for the next three years, costing the tax-payer £900,000 every month.
Child’s prey
23 June 2010 private eye
Last year, after a serious incident of child sex abuse at Yarl’s Wood, UKBA singularly failed to investigate the incident or provide adequate care for the children involved.
Let’s make the end of child detention herald a humane and evidence-based approach to asylum
Summer 2010 JCWI Bulletin
Clare Sambrook and Esmé Madill, coordinators of End Child Detention Now, on the crucial next stage of the campaign.
When the new government said, ‘We will end the detention of children for immigration purposes,’ some people proclaimed victory. But, as the families locked up in Yarl’s Wood pointed out in a letter published in the Observer, ‘we are still here in the detention centre’.
read on here
Despair, hope and despair again: the rollercoaster ride towards ending child detention
17 June 2010 The New Londoners
The new government’s promise to ‘end the detention of children for immigration purposes’, sparked hopes that this country might at last be moving towards an asylum policy based on evidence and not led by politicians’ terror of the tabloids.
Having acknowledged that child detention was wrong, the government’s logical next step would be to release the families currently being held and call off the hit-squads whose work is arresting and detaining families in conditions known to harm their mental health.
But the government has not released the families. The dawn raids carry on regardless.
read on here
When they said ‘We will end child detention,’ they meant ‘Keep on arresting babies’
19 May 2010, openDemocracy
At 11.36 this morning the mother of an 8-month old baby made a desperate plea for help on her mobile.
‘I told them please don’t send me and my baby in the van for nine hours, she is too young, I asked them to speak to my lawyer. But she just told me, “Look either you go in the van or we will take your baby in a separate van and you won’t see her until you get to Yarl’s Wood.”’
read on at openDemocracy. . .
Samaranch, Kissinger and the Coca Cola company:
a relentless fascist’s curious date with democracy
The day Juan Antonio Samaranch, the leader of the 'Olympic Movement' who died last month, faced allegations of corruption at a US Congressional hearing.
15 May 2010, openDemocracy
I happened to be there on Capitol Hill one bright December morning when Juan Antonio Samaranch, who last month died of heart failure, aged 89, had his first and only encounter with democratic scrutiny
It was 1999. The leader of the ‘Olympic Movement’ had spent the year manoeuvring to save his skin — and the Olympic myth — from financial catastrophe threatened by a well-earned corruption scandal. He had been summoned under threat of subpoena to testify before the Commerce Subcommittee, whose mission was to ‘go after fraud and abuse wherever we find it’.
Waiting in line before the hearing, I caught sight of Samaranch, standing apart, cut off from his entourage, small, old and apprehensive. I felt sorry for him . . . almost.
read on at openDemocracy
Scare centres
14 to 27 May 2010 private eye (issue 1262)
‘We recognise that when your child arrives at one of our centres they may be bewildered, tired and worried,’ security giant G4S tells families of young people locked up at its secure training centres. Children may be rightly worried.
Bucks for Berks
14 to 27 May 2010 private eye (issue 1262)
Could the decision to pay extraordinary rewards for ordinary performance be anything to do with the trust’s remuneration committee, some of whom are clearly out of touch?
Let’s ensure they really do end child detention now
If the government means the immediate closure of Yarl's Wood, that should be a cause for great rejoicing. We must hold them to it
12 May 2010, openDemocracy
‘We will end the detention of children for immigration purposes,’ says today’s coalition agreement. A stunning victory for children, decency and the Liberal Democrats if this pledge proves good. That may be a very big if.
Days before the Election David Cameron offered to set up a ‘working party’ including charities to ‘review child detention’. What’s to review? NHS paediatricians and psychologists Lorek et al six months ago found that children at Yarl’s Wood were ‘clearly vulnerable, marginalized, and at risk of mental and physical harm as a result of state sanctioned neglect (inadequate care and protection), and possibly abuse in the sense of exposure to violence within the detention facilities themselves.’
read on at openDemocracy. . .
Gordon Brown: the child detention letters
4 May 2010, openDemocracy
Following Brown's speech to Citizens UK today, there was a remarkable moment during which the Prime Minister, attempting to leave the stage, was challenged by the assembled citizens on whether he would put an end to the government's detention of children in immigration centres like Yarl's Wood. After a failed attempt to deflect the question, he said he 'wanted no child to suffer' and promised to look at the issue - an answer that left many who were there unsatisfied. Cameron too said he would review the practice, and only Clegg promised to end it. OurKingdom publishes an exchange on child detention between Gordon Brown and Clare Sambrook, journalist and Open Democracy author who campaigns with End Child Detention Now.
read on at openDemocracy
Crime pays
30 April to 13 May 2010 private eye (issue 1261)
G4S Nick Buckles pockets £1,656,251, on top of a £6million pension pot, on top of a £115,000 divi payment on his £4 million stack of shares, as detainee Eliud Nguli Nyense dies at Oakington Detention Centre.
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Election time: asylum seekers lose their last safety net
26 April 2010, openDemocracy
When terrified men, women and children are being shunted off to countries where they face real and imminent risk of rape, torture, genital mutilation or death, an MP’s urgent appeal to government may tip the balance, stalling removal directions, making time to get legal advice.
But not during a general election campaign, when MPs lose their right to represent constituents' grievances. ‘We will not be able to respond to former MPs, or prospective parliamentary candidates on individual cases,’ says the UK Border Agency, ‘unless there is a signed letter of authority from the individual they are representing.’
For an asylum seeker banged up unexpectedly in a detention centre, isolated from help and support, with little English, no legal advice, restricted access to a fax machine, and facing a dawn deportation flight, the effect until May 6th is likely to be: no representation.
read on at openDemocracy
Surveillance + detention = £Billions: How Labour’s friends are ‘securing your world’
13 April 2010, openDemocracy
At the bustling Counter Terror Expo in London’s Olympia this week they are giving top billing to the security industry’s favourite politician. ‘The most experienced cabinet minister of modern times’, they call him: Dr John Reid.
Home office colleagues say Reid — Labour hard man, former secretary of state for health and defence, and home secretary — is the minister who brought business in from the cold. These days relations are warm and cosy. Marketing their wares as vital to the war on terror, while dreaming up everyday applications for intrusive high security kit, Reid’s friends have quietly advanced deep into the public sector — running schools, GP clinics and police investigations.
read on at openDemocracy
Pulling the Woolas
2 April to 15 April 2010 private eye (issue 1259)
Is minister Phil Woolas — the MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth (majority 4,225) — lying about child detention in order to appease the 5,435 Oldham residents who voted BNP in last year’s Euro Elections?
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‘All the detainees are treated with dignity and respect’
18 March to 1 April 2010 private eye (issue 1258)
Rima Andmariam, aged 16, woken by Yarl’s Wood staff and told to dress for deportation the morning after her removal had been halted.
Has Meg Hillier gone mad?
19 march 2010, openDemocracy
Home Office minister Meg Hillier took a leap into la la land on today’s BBC Daily Politics Programme, claiming that if the government stopped locking up asylum seekers and their children, then the price of trafficked children would rise, putting more children at risk of trafficking.
I am not making this up.
Hillier, who has three young children of her own, said: ‘Now with children being detained I’m faced with a number of options. One is that we just stop it altogether, but then we would have children, I think, with a very high price on them, because we’d actually be saying, if you have a child you will never be detained to be deported. And I think that it would raise the risk of child trafficking and put a very high price on a child, so I’d be very reluctant to go down that route.’
It’s not as if Hillier blurted out this nonsense live and inadvertently.
read more at openDemocracy. . .
Take one traumatised child, classify as 'adult', arrest, lock up, and bundle onto plane, bound for danger - Labour's Britain in 2010
8 march 2010, openDemocracy
‘He looks my age,’ says my nine-year-old son. ‘He looks sort of like me.’ There’s a picture on my screen: a small, slight boy who, for legal reasons, we’ll call M. He’s being cuddled by his 17 year old big brother Z. Both boys are smiling. They have been reunited after a long, hard separation.
Back home in war-torn Afghanistan their parents and a sister were killed. Big brother Z was first to come to Britain, traumatised, in November 2008. He has refugee status, studies for his GCSEs at school in Leicester.
This past October little brother M made his way here. Despite M’s size, his vulnerability, his boyish looks, officials said, you’re not 14, you’re an adult.
read on at openDemocracy. . .
Jolly happy children at Yarl’s Wood
Government lies about the suffering of children in detention
18 february 2010, guardian
Uniformed men break down your door, burst in, shout at your children, Get up! Get Up! You may pack a few belongings. Your boy needs a wee. The woman in uniform watches over him in case of . . . what?
Your children are in danger and there is nothing, absolutely nothing you can do to protect them.
Sir Al Aynsley-Green’s new report on children banged up at Yarl’s Wood has survived Government attempts to neuter it — but only just.
read on at guardian. . .
Ed Balls and his iron hat
The Children, Schools and Families Bill is a stealth attack on liberty
26 january 2010, openDemocracy
My children, educated at home under their own direction, see themselves in Tom, the Russell Hoban character who likes to fool around with sticks and stones and crumpled bits of paper, bent nails, glass and holes in fences.
Tom’s maiden aunt, Miss Fidget Wonkham-Strong, who wears an iron hat, believes that too much playing is bad for him, he had better stop it and do something useful, learn off pages from the Nautical Almanac, eat his cabbage-and-potato sog.
The minister, Ed Balls, would suit an iron hat.
read on at openDemocracy. . .
Roll calls, body searches and sex games
What Parliament isn’t being told about children’s lives inside a UK detention centre
17 january 2010, openDemocracy
Back in October, a study by NHS paediatricians and psychologists, Lorek et al, found that babies and children were being harmed at Yarl’s Wood detention centre.
The doctors recorded children’s 'increased fear due to being suddenly placed in a facility resembling a prison', their weight loss and tummy pains, how older children were so stressed they wet their beds and soiled their pants.
The study related the photographing and the fingerprinting, the roll calls and the body searches, the ID cards that children must carry at all times, the ten locked doors between freedom and the family centre, the steep deterioration in parents' mental health and parenting abilities, the self-harm and the suicide attempts.
And the sex games.
read on at openDemocracy. . .
Serco Clowns
10 december 2009, private eye
Serco and the Home Office threw a party to open the new school for innocent children forcibly detained at Yarl’s Wood.
Child detention: cui bono?
Who profits from locking up asylum-seeking families
tuesday 24 november 2009, end child detention now
There is no evidence that asylum-seekers with children are likely to abscond, yet the government forcibly detains at least 2000 children and babies every year and holds them, sometimes for months on end, in conditions known to damage their physical and mental health.
Why on earth would our government do that?
One principle that has guided investigations since Roman times is: Cui Bono? Who benefits?
Business is booming at G4S, the company that runs Tinsley House Removal Centre where last month ten-year-old Adeoti Ogunsola, after being forcibly redetained, tried to strangle herself.
read on at end child detention now. . .
Henry Porter reported on this piece at guardian.co.uk
Detention of asylum seeking children is abuse
4 november 2009, community care
One key feature of government guidance issued this week on how UK Border Agency staff should care for the children they lock up, is ‘safer recruitment’.
Officers raiding family homes and searching children in their beds will be thoroughly checked, with ‘references always taken up’.
That begs the question: just how low were standards until now?
read on at community care. . .
Labour's to blame for the BNP
Peter Hain's call to fight the far-right party is right, but he and his chums have paved its way
monday 4 may 2009, guardian
Along with many readers who have responded to Peter Hain's article on tackling the BNP, I blame its rise on him and his discredited government.
read on at guardian. . .