Deportation cases now under review

THE cases of eight people who were due to be deported to Jamaica are being reviewed by the Home Office after fresh legal representations were made.

Some 50 people were originally expected to be on the chartered deportation flight that left the UK at around 7.30am yesterday.

But it took off with 17 on board after a last-minute legal battle between the government and human rights campaigners.

Officials and ministers have said all were foreign criminals who committed serious offences.

But campaigners, supported by 150 MPs, say they came to the country as children, are “British in every meaningful way” and some were sentenced for one-time drug offences when they were young.

The government said it will urgently appeal against a Court of Appeal ruling which prevented 25 people from boarding the flight after concerns were raised about whether those held in Heathrow centres had adequate access to legal advice.

The remaining eight people who were due to be deported but never boarded the flight are having their cases reviewed by the Home Office after they made fresh legal representations over their circumstances, the PA news agency understands.

Several separate legal challenges were brought to court on Monday.

As a result the eight are still being held while their cases are considered. The flight follows news of a leaked report commissioned by ministers in the wake of the Windrush scandal which warned the government that the deportation policy should be reconsidered in all but the “most severe cases”.