Lib Dems Congratulate Themselves on Breaking Promise to End Detention of Child Refugees Courtesy of Barnardos – the Money Grabbing  ‘Charity’ that began its life kidnapping children

Black Kids Sell Well – Especially at our Pease Pottage Detention Centre

The actual slogan is ‘Barnardos believe in making money out of children

Only the Lib Dems could congratulate themselves on breaking a promise to end child detention

No Child Left Behind –  Unless Barnardos Can Make Some Money From Locking them Up!

HM Inspector of Prisons exposes deputy prime minister’s fabrication to have ended detention of children

Lib Dem Conference

During a 25 minute fanfare at last month’s Liberal Democrat party conference, deputy prime minister Nick Clegg claimed again that the government has fulfilled its promise to end the immigration detention of children.  It has not. It has simply re-branded the detention of children, opening a new detention facility for children at Pease Pottage, run by G4S and Barnardo’s. Yesterday, HM Inspector of Prisons (HMIP) published its first report on this new detention facility for children and families (“Cedars”).

Self-harm, use of force and lack of legal representation revealed by HMIP

Universally Despised Opportunist

• 136 people from 39 families had been detained – 84 children and 52 adults
• Six families had been detained twice, and one three times.
• 49% detained families had no legal representation
• 17 removals failed, often due to a last-minute high court injunction
• 9 families were subsequently released, begging the question why they were ever detained in the first place
• Some families had been subjected to multiple attempts to remove them
• Children had become very distressed during forced removals
• There had been self-harm incidents and one detainee had punched her own face causing her tongue to bleed
• No mental health awareness training for any staff 
• Clinical governance arrangements were only “being developed”
• Some complaints by detainees were found to be partially substantiated
• UKBA kept a record of complaints made but not of outcomes
• Two members of staff had been suspended as a result of inappropriate comments
• The Detention Centre Rules do not apply – “The legal basis for the operation of Cedars should be clear”

Force had been used against six families, including against children
• Two men and woman hade been carried by force in the airport 
• An escort had grabbed a woman by the hair – she made a complaint which had been upheld

A pregnant woman in a wheelchair was tipped up and had her feet held by staff from G4S
HMIP : “Force had been used to effect the removal of a pregnant woman, using non-approved techniques. There is no safe way to do this while protecting the unborn child and it is simply not acceptable to initiate force for such purposes … the risk of injury to the unborn child was significant. There is no safe way to use force against a pregnant woman, and to initiate it for the purpose of removal is to take an unacceptable risk… Force should never be used to effect the removal of pregnant women or of children. It should only ever be used in relation to such vulnerable groups in order to prevent harm.”

Will Barnardo’s withdraw it’s services from UKBA to run this detention facility together with G4S ?
Barnardo’s was adamant it would withdraw if certain “red lines” were crossed. Its “red lines” include disproportionate use of force and the detention of families more than twice at “Cedars”. HMIP revealed that 6 families were detained two or more times and the force used on the pregnant woman as “unacceptable”.

Read the Medical Justice update on children in detention http://www.medicaljustice.org.uk/mj-reports,-submissions,-etc./press-releases/1977-hm-inspector-of-prisons-exposes-deputy-prime-ministers-fabrication-to-have-ended-detention-of-children-241012.html

Download the 23/10/12 HMIP report on the detention facility at Pease Pottage
Guardian 23/10/12 :

“Britain’s still locking up children” 
Nick Clegg boasts that child detention is over, but the coalition’s own figures reveal otherwise

Guardian 23/10/12 : “‘Unacceptable force’ used by G4S staff deporting pregnant woman”

Disclosure in first report of prisons inspector on UK Border Agency’s ‘family-friendly’ Cedars unit near Gatwick