D687

15. D687 was born in the Republic of Somaliland.¹ He came to the UK in 1994 as a 10 year old with his family, who were granted refugee status in 1997, and he has lived in the UK continuously ever since.² After his arrival in the UK, he spent time in care.³ He struggled with his mental health and spent time in prison.⁴ At the end of a prison sentence in 2015, he was detained under immigration powers and placed in detention.⁵ He said:

“Even though I wasn’t born here, I feel as British as anyone who was … My British identity is really important to me. It hurts when people try to tell me I’m not British. It’s like they are denying who I am, my identity.”⁶

16. D687 spent 987 days in immigration detention from March 2015 to November 2017, 563 of which were spent at Brook House.⁷ He said: “I remember being confused and scared when I first arrived at Brook House. The physical environment made that worse.”⁸ He told the Inquiry that officers were verbally and racially abusive towards him;⁹ he also submitted a complaint about excessive force being used.¹⁰ He said:

“The abuse that I experienced at Brook House was so frequent and so woven into the culture of the centre, it became completely normal.”¹¹

17. While D687 was detained, his brother died and he was unable to attend the funeral.¹² D687 said that this, along with past trauma, the length of time spent in detention, and how he had been treated, contributed to his worsening mental health and ultimately led him to try to take his own life in May 2017.¹³ This incident was shown on the Panorama programme. He said:

“As my mental health deteriorated, I then started to give up on life to the extent I wanted to die.”¹⁴

18. Speaking about his experience at Brook House, he said:

“I was treated like an animal. Something less than human. It’s left an impact on me and on my mental health which I don’t think I’ll ever get over. When I entered Brook House, I felt relatively normal. When I left it, I felt broken, hopeless and mad.”¹⁵

19. Since leaving Brook House, D687 has been diagnosed with recurrent depressive disorder and PTSD.¹⁶ He said:

“My hope is that lessons can be learned – they must be – to prevent anything like this happening to anyone else.”¹⁷

1. DPG000021_0001 para 2[↩]
2. DPG000021_0001 para 2; DPG000021_0003 para 10[↩]
3. DPG000021_0003 para 11[↩]
4. DPG000021_0006 para 19[↩]
5. DPG000021_0008 paras 25-26[↩]
6. DPG000021_0003-0004 para 12[↩]
7. DPG000021_0002 para 5[↩]
8. DPG000021_0011-012 para 36[↩]
9.   DPG000021_0023 para 69[↩]
10. HOM002725_0001[↩]
11. DPG000021_0020 para 65a[↩]
12.   DPG000021_0051 para 141[↩]
13. DPG000021_0070 para 197[↩]
14. DPG000021_0070 para 197 [↩]
15. DPG000021_0077 para 218[↩]
16. DPG000021_0001 para 3[↩]
17. DPG000021_0079 para 226[↩]