Government must commit to implementing recommendations of Brook House Inquiry

We all deserve to be treated with dignity and respect – but immigration detention is not a safe place for anyone.

The stories of mistreatment revealed by the Brook House Inquiry are absolutely harrowing – with the inquiry chair Kate Evans identifying “credible evidence” of acts or omissions capable of amounting to breaches of the prohibition against torture, inhuman or degrading treatment in Article 3 ECHR as incorporated through the Human Rights Act.

The findings confirm what migrants’ rights activists have been saying for years – that the UK immigration detention estate causes immense physical and mental harm.

Just last week, Liberty Investigates revealed an “attempted mass suicide” at the UK’s largest detention centre following the death of 39-year-old Frank Ospina in the adjoining Colnbrook. This event lays bare the desperation experienced by so many people left languishing in detention centres across the UK.

The UK is the only country which locks people in detention centres with no time limit. But instead of providing routes to safety and protection, the UK Government has passed the Illegal Migration Act which will see even more people – including children – detained in these dangerous and dehumanising environments.

The Government must commit to implementing the recommendations of the Brook House Inquiry in full, hold those responsible to account, and act to ensure that incidents like these are never allowed to happen again.