Detainees ‘held for too long’

Foreign nationals have been kept in Britain’s largest immigration removal centre for as long as four years, a watchdog report reveals.

Detainees were held in “prison-like” conditions at the Harmondsworth immigration removal centre (IRC) near Heathrow Airport for unacceptably lengthy periods, inspectors said.

HM Inspectorate of Prisons in an assessment of IRC, in west London, said: “Some detainees had been held in detention for too long, with 23 held for more than a year at the start of the inspection; one had been held for more than four and half years.”