 | | Artikel uit de Engelse pers | all included - 09.08.2007 11:09
Police seek 14 who fled immigration centre
Published: 06 August 2007
Police using dogs and a helicopter were last night still searching for 14 detainees
who escaped from a troubled immigration centre in Oxfordshire.
Officers in riot gear were called to disturbances at the Campsfield House centre
after a fire was started near propane gas canisters outside the kitchen on Saturday.
In the aftermath, 26 inmates escaped but 12 were caught.
Tensions over conditions had been growing all week. Detainees held a one-day hunger
strike and twice refused to return to their rooms at night. Problems had been
increasing since Campsfield started to house foreign prisoners awaiting deportation,
alongside people still appealing for asylum.
One inmate said detainees evacuated from the main building had forced open a gate in
the perimeter fence. "Some of them set a fire by the gas canisters as a decoy. The
alarms went off and as soon as they took us outside, people were climbing over the
fence and pushing at the gate. The guards were caught with their pants down; they
didn't know what to do."
Superintendent Robin Rickard, of Thames Valley Police, said: "I urge members of the
public to contact us immediately if they see anyone they believe could be one of
those involved."
Damian Green, the shadow Immigration minister, said: "This is an inevitable
consequence of the Government filling immigration detention centres with foreign
prisoners they have failed to deport. Until the Government gets a grip on prison
overcrowding, the problems will continue to spill over and cause dangerous tensions
in immigration detention centres."
After a fire and riot at Campsfield this March, in which several staff and detainees
were injured, a Home Office report concluded that overcrowding, poor physical
conditions and bureaucratic delays could lead to more rioting at such centres.
It also warned that foreign prisoners may be tempted to join in disturbances
because, facing deportation, they consider they have little to lose.
Campsfield, formerly a young offenders' institution, has been prone to rooftop
protests, riots and hunger strikes since it was converted into an immigration
detention centre in 1993.
It is the only one of Britain's 10 immigration detention centres to be run by the
American company Global Expertise in Outsourcing (GEO). The company also has a
contract to run a "migrant operations centre" at the US prison camp in Guantanamo
Bay. GEO describes itself as a "world leader in the privatised management of
correctional facilities".
But campaigners say that conditions in Campsfield have deteriorated since GEO took
over, and warned that this weekend's uprising was unlikely to be the last.
Bob Hughes, of the Campaign to Close Campsfield, said: "Since GEO arrived, there has
been a marked reduction in the association time for detainees, and a deterioration
in both food and medical attention."
Built to hold 196 prisoners, the centre is almost always at full capacity, with
reports of three or four detainees in cells designed for one. A detainee said:
"There are three of us in my cell with no ventilation. We are just boiling in here.
This is worse than prison. At least in prison you know when you're getting out; here
we don't know where we stand."
Donna Covey, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: "Reports keep telling us
Campsfield and other detention centres are horrible so it is not surprising that
these people - who are often detained for long periods - are desperate to escape."
Evan Harris, the Liberal Democrat MP whose Oxford West and Abingdon constituency
includes the Campsfield centre, called for an inquiry into the use of private
companies to run detention centres.
GEO did not respond to an interview request.
 http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article2838657.ece
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