Violence and drug-use is on the rise at a scandal-hit immigration detention centre after a sudden influx of ex-prisoners released from overcrowded prisons, a new report has found.
Inspectors found a “concerning and substantial rise in violence and self-harm” in their visit to Brook House immigration removal centre near Gatwick airport in August this year.
Visiting Inspectors described how one psychotic detainee, who was waiting to be transfered to a mental health hospital, had to be moved to different wings three times because other detainees were threatening him.
HM chief inspector of prisons, Charlie Taylor, wrote in a report published on Monday that “it was clear that a sudden influx of ex-prisoners in 2023 as a result of severe overcrowding in prisons had created some instability in the centre”. However he said there were persistent problems at the site that could not be put down just to the influx of ex-prisoners.
Almost half of the detainees told inspectors that they had mental health problems, and 35 per cent said they had felt suicidal.
The Brook House site, which was holding about 330 detainees at the time of the inspection, houses failed asylum seekers who have had no previous experience of custody and ex-prisoners whose immigration cases had not been resolved during their sentences.
The number of recorded assaults on staff and of fights had risen five-fold since the previous inspection in June 2022, with 80 attacks on staff in the past six months.
It was also becoming increasingly easy to get illicit drugs at the site, inspectors warned.
Inspectors found the health services at the site were “stretched to breaking point”, and criticised the lengths of time that people were held there for. 10 people had been held at Brook House for over a year and one man for over 500 days.
Mr Taylor said the Home Office has to reduce the number of people at the site so that staff can provide adequate care for the most vulnerable detainees.
In the previous year, at least 20 detainees had been released homeless from Brook House, including people assessed as vulnerable.
About 60 per cent of the detainees had been held in prison at some point, and 41 per cent had arrived directly from prison. 28 per cent of the people at Brook House were Albanians.
In the past year, three staff had been dismissed due to inappropriate conduct and two were suspended pending investigation.
Brook House was hit by scandal when an undercover BBC Panorama team obtained footage of violence against and abuse of vulnerable detainees in 2017.
The revelations prompted an inquiry, which concluded in September this year, and found that there was a “toxic culture” at the immigration site. The inquiry report called for an introduction of a 28-day time limit for detention, but this has so far been rejected by the government.
In late October this year, after the inspection, a French-born man was found dead at Brook House. A coroner has said he is believed to have died from unnatural causes.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “We recognise standards need to improve across immigration detention facilities, that is why we are taking robust action to improve conditions and safeguards, informed by the findings of this report.
“We are reviewing current practices around preventing violence and use of force within the site, and have introduced a programme focused on improving the overall culture, as well as a mentoring scheme for newly recruited officers.”
