Ministers hit by 11th-hour court ruling blocking controversial Jamaica deportations
3 min read
Ministers have been dealt a blow as the Court of Appeal halted a controversial deportation flight to Jamaica at the 11th-hour.
More than 170 MPs had already urged ministers to postpone the flight following the leaked recommendations of a report on the Windrush scandal, which saw British nationals who had come to the UK decades ago deported to the Caribbean.
The Government had insisted that the latest flight - which had been due to leave on Tuesday - contained no British nationals and would remove only foreign nationals who had committed a string of offences.
The High Court earlier on Monday ruled against halting the flight, but the appeal court granted a late-night order calling on the Home Office to pause some of the removals. The flight is expected to go ahead but with many of the detainees no longer on board.
The move followed a campaign by charity Detention Action, which had argued that detainees at the Colnbrook and Harmondsworth detention centres had not had access to legal advice because of a telecoms outage in the local area.
Lady Justice Simler ordered the Home Office not to remove anyone “unless satisfied [they] had access to a functioning, non-O2 Sim card on or before February 3”.
Toufique Hossain, director of public law at Duncan Lewis Solicitors, which represents some of those facing deportation, said: “For weeks now detainees’ complaints have fallen on deaf ears. Their removal looms large, hours away, and yet again it takes judicial intervention to make the Home Office take basic, humane and fair steps to allow people to enjoy their constitutional right to access justice.”
MPs had been demanding answers from the Home Office over whether any of those on board had arrived in Britain as children. A leaked draft of the report into the Windrush scandal called on ministers to consider ending the deportation of foreign-born offenders, particularly those who came to the UK as children.
Ministers also faced calls to give a detailed breakdown of the offences committed by those on board, amid concern that some people convicted of non-violent and drug offences are among those set to be deported.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “The planned charter flight to Jamaica is specifically for removing foreign criminals. Those detained for removal include people convicted of manslaughter, rape, violent crime and dealing Class A drugs.”
Home Office minister Kevin Foster told the Commons on Monday: “I have checked. There are no British nationals on that flight. And let’s be clear: the foreign national offenders on that flight have been sentenced to a total of 300 years in prison.
“The offences are, as we said, relate to everything from sex offending, serious drug trafficking offences, violent offences, firearms offences."
Labour MP Nadia Whittome, who organised a joint letter by MPs urging an end to the flight, welcomed the face the Government had been “forced to cancel some tickets” by the Court of Appeal’s decision.
But she said: “Those detained at Brook House are still liable for removable because there has been mobile phone access.
“Only people detained at Harmondsworth and Colnbrook have been removed from the flight.”
PoliticsHome Newsletters
PoliticsHome provides the most comprehensive coverage of UK politics anywhere on the web, offering high quality original reporting and analysis: Subscribe
