THE WINDRUSH SCANDAL MUST NEVER BE REPEATED
ship burnt black, but the tip of its stern, where the anchor is attached, is still white.
“So I think the anchor won’t have been damaged by the fire.There’s a good chance it had the majority of the paint on it, which would have protected it from corrosion at the bottom of the Med.That’s a positive thing for us.”
What’s more, since he knows from eyewitness accounts that the ship sank very slowly, it’s likely it plunged to the sea floor on an even keel. Photographs show the stern anchor secured to the ship by two large brackets, and sitting on top of a steel base.
Even if the ship had struck the seabed at speed and with great force, Mearns believes the anchor – weighing between one-and-ahalf and two tonnes – would still be in its original position. Once he has located the wreck, his plan is to use a remotely-operated underwater vehicle armed with a rotary saw to cut away the brackets, and a heavy-lift system to winch the anchor back to his ship at the surface.
Much trickier will be the funding of the
WRECK HUNTER: David Mearns and, far right, HMT Empire Windrush two days before she sank in 1954
expedition, which Mearns has estimated at between £1.5 and £2.5million.
The team aims to raise £500,000 through online crowdfunding, while they hope the costly vessel, equipment and crew might be offered for free. Mearns himself is working pro bono.
Finally there is the question of where
SITTING as an immigration judge for 16 years I thought I had seen it all.
On the one hand were Nigerians pretending to be from the Ivory Coast, Kenyans who claimed they were from Rwanda and Pakistanis masquerading as Afghanis.
On the other were frightened and tortured people seeking asylum on religious and political grounds from, among others, Sri Lanka, Eritrea and Middle Eastern countries.
An Iranian who had converted from Islam to Christianity faced a death sentence on their return, and I was the first judge to rule that a terrified child about to be sent abroad to undergo female genital mutilation was entitled to refugee status.
The Home Office tried valiantly to sort out truth from myth, while applying insanely complex immigration rules.
Meanwhile, legal advisers to genuine claimants were hampered in some cases by the withdrawal of legal aid and the removal of the right of appeal.
Yet all this paled into insignificance alongside the Windrush scandal, which became a long-running sore on our immigration and legal system after coming to light in 2018.
In a nutshell, British subjects, many members of the Windrush generation, were wrongly detained, threatened with deportation and, in more than 80 cases, actually deported.
The Home Office destroyed landing cards of the Windrush generation in 2010 and, while the Immigration Act 1971 provided for those born in the UK before 1973 to have right of abode, the Home Office required documentation going back 14 years. How many of us can produce a gas bill that far back?
The Home Office presumed lack of documentation equalled illegality and members of the Windrush generation and their children were cruelly targeted. Others who had visited the West Indies were not allowed back into the UK, notwithstanding the fact they had been resident and paying taxes for, in some cases, decades.
Those affected lost jobs, housing, benefits and effectively became homeless. I was privileged to be part of the official review of the shameful affair.
While lessons have been learned and a compensation scheme established, the coronavirus pandemic has deflected attention from the plight of so many innocent, dignified and loyal citizens.
As a nation, we must be ashamed such governmental action was taken in our name. It’s incumbent upon all of us in this great nation to ensure such a scandal is never repeated. and how the anchor might eventually be displayed. In recent weeks, the cultural impact of public statues and monuments has divided opinion.
Fortunately, the Empire Windrush’s anchor would only portray a positive message and Mearns is convinced it will have a special meaning for many. “People who visit the
Former President of the Council of Immigration Judges and author of The Making of an Immigration Judge: Revised Edition (Quartet Books, £15) monument will know it comes directly from the ship,” he says. “They will be able to actually touch it.
“That will convey an enormously powerful message.”
●●Visit gofundme.com to donate to the campaign to fund the memorial