Other investigations and reports
- A number of investigations took place at Brook House following the Panorama programme. More broadly, a range of investigations into immigration detention have been conducted over 20 years, in response either to incidents that have occurred at particular IRCs or to specific policy concerns. Brook House has also been subject to regular monitoring and inspection throughout its operation.
- This Inquiry builds upon the findings of these reviews, inspections and investigations, and has sought not to duplicate the work of others.1 I considered a number of reports of particular relevance to this Inquiry, which were produced by:
- HM Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP), which carries out independent inspections and produces reports on the conditions for, and treatment of, prisoners and other detained people, including those held in IRCs;2
- the Independent Monitoring Board at Brook House (Brook House IMB), which is made up of unpaid volunteers who monitor day-to-day life at Brook House, in order to ensure that proper standards of care and decency are maintained;3) and
- Mr Stephen Shaw, a former Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO), who undertook a number of investigations in relation to immigration detention in that capacity and subsequently.4
- In his reports, Mr Shaw identified a number of concerns regarding immigration detention, some touching on Brook House. These concerns included:
- the design and use of detention centre buildings;5
- staffing levels and training;6
- senior management;7
- staff whistleblowing;8
- healthcare for detained people;9
- use of psychoactive substances or ‘legal highs’ by detained people;10
- immigration case work;11
- procedural safeguards for detained people;12
- Home Office guidance;13 and
- contract monitoring and oversight by the Home Office.14
- The last of Mr Shaw’s reports was commissioned in September 2017, before the broadcast of the Panorama programme. However, he was subsequently asked by the Home Office to consider in that report the events at Brook House shown in the programme, including issues of staff culture, recruitment and training, the sufficiency of complaints mechanisms and the effectiveness of whistleblowing procedures.15
- Following the broadcast of the Panorama programme, a number of further investigations took place.
12.1 Verita: In November 2017, G4S commissioned Verita, an external investigations company, to investigate and report on the issues at Brook House raised by the Panorama programme. The investigation was conducted by Ms (now Baroness) Kate Lampard CBE and Mr Ed Marsden, and a report was published in November 2018 (the 2018 Verita report). It identified a number of concerns, including:
- failings in senior management and weak line management arrangements;16
- undervalued empathy and care towards detained people;17
- a lack of activities to occupy detained people;18
- understaffing and inexperienced staff, with an Initial Training Course that did not adequately prepare new staff, as well as uncompetitive remuneration, shift patterns, and terms and conditions of employment that compounded recruitment problems;19
- a lack of confidence among staff in confidential reporting and whistleblowing processes;20
- bullying between staff;21 and
- an IMB that identified too closely with the aims of the Home Office and G4S, and was not robust enough in its monitoring.22
12.2 Home Office Professional Standards Unit: In November 2017, the Home Office referred 10 cases of alleged serious misconduct for investigation by its Professional Standards Unit. Of these, seven were accepted for investigation, and reports were completed in 2018.23
12.3 Home Affairs Committee: The Home Affairs Committee undertook its own inquiry into immigration detention. Its report, published in March 2019, noted serious failings in “almost every element” of immigration detention and made a number of recommendations, including the need for more judicial oversight and “an end to indefinite immigration detention”.24 It described the Home Office as having a “shockingly cavalier attitude”, and suggested that it needed to be much more “robust” with its contractors managing IRCs.25
12.4 National Audit Office: Concerned by some of the evidence of financial and contractual issues at Brook House, the Home Affairs Committee asked the National Audit Office to look at the contract with G4S in March 2019.26 The National Audit Office observed:
- The level of risk carried by G4S on the contract was not high, with an inability to impose significant financial consequences for the abuse of detained people and difficulties in contractually enforcing action.27
- Home Office contract monitoring was carried out at a junior level and relied primarily on G4S self-reporting.28
12.5 Sussex Police: Sussex Police conducted a criminal investigation into 14 of the incidents broadcast in the Panorama programme. In respect of 13 of the 14 incidents, no further action was taken.29 One key incident on 25 April 2017 was investigated further but the Crown Prosecution Service confirmed in November 2018 that no criminal charges would be brought.30
12.6 Prisons and Probation Ombudsman: On 21 September 2018, a PPO special investigation was announced to investigate the decisions, actions and circumstances surrounding the mistreatment of detained people at Brook House broadcast in the Panorama programme. The PPO’s investigation was subsequently converted to this statutory Inquiry.
12.7 Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration: Between July 2020 and March 2021, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI) conducted an inspection of ‘Adults at Risk’ in immigration detention. The ICIBI found a widespread tendency within the Home Office to view claims of vulnerability and the use of safeguarding mechanisms as spurious and a misuse of process, and slow progress in addressing recommendations made by previous investigations.31 It made a number of recommendations for strengthening procedural safeguards for detained people.32 Following a third annual inspection between June and September 2022, which focused on the effectiveness and efficiency of Rule 35 of the Detention Centre Rules 2001, the ICIBI noted:
“Rule 35 provides an important safeguard, bringing to the Home Office’s attention … individuals who are particularly vulnerable. This inspection found that this important safeguard was not working consistently or effectively.”33
- It is important to understand the nature of these reports and relevant recommendations and, as will be considered later in the Report, the extent to which the Home Office and its contractors have acted on them. The key inspection and investigation reports are set out in Table 1, and a table listing key relevant previous recommendations is included in Appendix 4 in Volume III of this Report. The Home Office also produced for the Inquiry a table of these third-party recommendations, indicating whether they were accepted or rejected, and giving details of the action taken where accepted and the reasons for any partial or complete rejection.34
Table 1: List of key inspection and investigation reports
- Also in the aftermath of the Panorama programme, D1527 and D687 (both formerly detained people at Brook House who were shown on the Panorama programme) brought a judicial review claim against the Home Secretary. D1527 and D687 were known as MA and BB respectively for the purposes of the judicial review proceedings. They argued that a statutory inquiry was necessary to meet the requirements of an investigation compliant with the State’s obligations under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (Article 3). In a judgment dated 14 June 2019, the court found in favour of MA and BB. It concluded that an effective investigation in compliance with Article 3 required there to be powers to compel witness attendance, to hold hearings in public and to ensure that MA and BB had properly funded legal representation.35
References
- Notice of Determination Inquiry Scope, Brook House Inquiry, para 31[↩]
- What we do, HM Inspectorate of Prisons, updated 18 July 2022[↩]
- Members for Independent Monitoring Boards throughout England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales, Gov.uk role details (March 2023[↩]
- The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO) is appointed by the Secretary of State for Justice and acts as an independent adjudicator for prisoner complaints. The remit of the Prisons Ombudsman was extended in 2001 to include complaints from those under probation supervision[↩]
- INQ000240_167-169; INQ000060_045-047 paras 3.3-3.19; Assessment of Government Progress in Implementing the Report on the Welfare in Detention of Vulnerable Persons, Stephen Shaw, Cm 9661, July 2018, paras 2.75, 2.77, recommendations 7, 8[↩]
- INQ000240_285-288; Report of the Independent Advisory Panel on Non-Compliance Management, March 2014, para 4.66; Assessment of Government Progress in Implementing the Report on theWelfare in Detention of Vulnerable Persons, Stephen Shaw, Cm 9661, July 2018, paras 6.23-6.24[↩]
- INQ000240_295-297; Inquiry into Allegations of Racism and Mistreatment of Detainees at Oakington Immigration Reception Centre and While Under Escort, Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, July 2005, foreword, p4[↩]
- Assessment of Government Progress in Implementing the Report on the Welfare in Detention of Vulnerable Persons, Stephen Shaw, Cm 9661, July 2018, para 6.30[↩]
- INQ000060_13; INQ000060_158-182; Assessment of Government Progress in Implementing the Report on the Welfare in Detention of Vulnerable Persons, Stephen Shaw, Cm 9661, July 2018, para 3.36[↩]
- INQ000060_030 para 1.109; INQ000060_047 para 3.17[↩]
- INQ000060_183-190 paras 10.1-10.36[↩]
- INQ000060_102-109 recommendation 21; Assessment of Government Progress in Implementing the Report on the Welfare in Detention of Vulnerable Persons, Stephen Shaw, Cm 9661, July 2018, recommendations 14-15, pp35-41[↩]
- INQ000060_090 para 4.36[↩]
- Report of the Independent Advisory Panel on Non-Compliance Management, March 2014, paras 5.5-5.6; INQ000060_100-101 recommendation 20; Assessment of Government Progress in Implementing the Report on the Welfare in Detention of Vulnerable Persons, Stephen Shaw, Cm 9661, July 2018, para 6.75, recommendations 41, 42, 112-114; INQ000240_315[↩]
- Assessment of Government Progress in Implementing the Report on the Welfare in Detention ofVulnerable Persons, Stephen Shaw, Cm 9661, July 2018, pp127-128[↩]
- CJS0073709_010 para 1.24; CJS0073709_078 para 7.48[↩]
- CJS0073709_254 para 15.11[↩]
- CJS0073709_254 para 15.11; CJS0073709_131 para 9.13[↩]
- CJS0073709_109 paras 8.48 and 8.91; CJS0073709_098-099 para 8.6[↩]
- CJS0073709_227 para 13.53[↩]
- CJS0073709_221 para 13.32[↩]
- CJS0073709_236 para 14.18[↩]
- HOM0331707[↩]
- Immigration Detention – Fourteenth Report of Session 2017-19, House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, 21 March 2019, pp4-5[↩]
- Immigration Detention – Fourteenth Report of Session 2017-19, House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, 21 March 2019, p26, para 65[↩]
- Immigration Detention – Fourteenth Report of Session 2017-19, House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, 21 March 2019, p80, para 247[↩]
- DL0000175_07 para 13; DL0000175_010 para 27; DL0000175_026 para 2.21[↩]
- DL0000175_027 para 3.2[↩]
- SXP000053[↩]
- This incident is examined in detail in Chapter C.4; see also DL0000150 para 28c[↩]
- INQ000156_012 paras 3.3-3.4[↩]
- INQ000156_018 para 4.10[↩]
- Third Annual Inspection of ‘Adults at Risk in Immigration Detention’, Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, January 2023[↩]
- HOM0332050[↩]
- MA & BB v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWHC 1523 (Admin)[↩]