Bingo, yoga – then foreign criminals can walk out of UK camp
FOREIGN criminals have been treated to dance classes, yoga and bingo at an immigration removal centre... before being released back on to Britain’s streets.
Also on offer were dress and jewellery making sessions, treatments at a beauty salon and parties for Valentine’s Day and Shrove Tuesday.
Inspectors last night delivered a scathing verdict on the record of the Yarl’s Wood centre, where suspected illegal immigrants are held supposedly pending deportation.
Of 4,635 people held in the centre last year, only a third were sent home. The remaining two-thirds were either permitted to remain in the UK or bailed.
The Independent Monitoring Board, a watchdog that checks conditions inside prisons and removal centres, said that, in one particularly shocking case, a foreign criminal from China was held for 800 days and then let go.
It has been estimated that a place at the centre costs £30,000 a year, meaning that woman alone would have cost the taxpayer around £70,000.
The IMB said it was concerned the wrong people were being held. Those sent to the centre in Bedfordshire included pregnant women, the mentally ill and foreign criminals from inside the EU – who it is fiendishly difficult to deport.
But inspectors found that, despite campaigners dubbing Yarl’s Wood a ‘prison camp’, staff provided a ‘varied timetable of activities throughout the week’ to keep detainees entertained.
They include afternoon football sessions, and cricket matches in the summer. The IMB report says: ‘The Sports Hall offers a varied timetable of activities throughout the week from afternoon football sessions for men to the Music in Detention choir, as well as bingo, yoga, and zumba (a type of dance). Full use is made of the hall for events like Children in Need, Valentine’s Day, Christmas quiz evenings, and detainees of all ages are encouraged to participate.
‘The range of artefacts created is ever- growing. In 2014 detainees crafted photo frames, bracelets, cushions, paper roses, 3D origami, T-shirts, watches, greetings cards, clay ornaments and wood craft, and even began dressmaking, following the donation of fabric suitable for use as skirts.’
Many of the items made are sold for 50p, with the money going to charity.
Staff also offer a wide range of international cuisine in the centre’s ‘Café Central’ to reflect the fact that, at any one time, there are 50 nationalities staying there.
There is also an ‘extremely popular’ hair salon. The report says: ‘Among the Asian population threading and hair colour treatments are the most popular, while African and Caribbean detainees tend to opt for hair extensions and manicures.’
The report comes less than a week after 400 protesters held a demonstration for the ‘prison camp’ to be closed immediately. The demonstrators chanted: ‘Detention centres will fall, brick by brick, wall by wall.’
Actress Juliet Stevenson, who starred in films such as Bend It Like Beckham and Truly, Madly, Deeply, said at last Saturday’s protest: ‘They really are poisonous institutions so they should shut.’
A petition calling for a debate in Parliament to end immigration detention has now attracted more than 100,000 signatures.
Yarl’s Wood has been dogged by controversy in recent years. Two members of staff were recently suspended after an undercover Channel 4 investigation found staff referring to the inmates as ‘animals’.
The Home Secretary has commissioned an independent review of detainees’ welfare. Immigration minister James Brokenshire said: ‘We want to protect the health and wellbeing of people at all times – including those whom we are detaining.’
‘Varied timetable of activities’