Judge condemns treatment of torture victim

In a judgment which will prove highly embarrassing for the Home Office, His Honour Judge Collins CBE identified “systemic” problems at Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre in Bedfordshire during the woman’s detention there in 2006, describing the whole system in the centre at the time as “dysfunctional”. He has ordered that the asylum seeker be awarded £57,000 in exemplary damages.

As Channel 4 News can also reveal, the Home Office recently had to make a compensation payment of more than £100,000 after another torture victim, a 31-year-old Ugandan, sued the government for unlawful detention. Both claimants have told Channel 4 News that they considered committing suicide while in UK detention.

A leading medical charity has described the situation as a “disgrace”, claiming that hundreds, possibly thousands, of other torture victims are suffering the same fate every year in the UK.

During my detention in the UK, I felt like a moving corpse. From the time I was told to enter the van until the time I arrived at Yarl’s Wood, I cried continuously – so much so that I lost my voice – Beatrice

“Moving corpse”
“I felt like a moving corpse,” says Beatrice (not her real name), describing her month-long detention at Yarl’s Wood. The UK Border Agency should never have locked her up in the first place, such were the inherent risks associated with her trauma being exacerbated by further detention.

She was 37 when she was tortured in a prison in West Africa (she requested that her country of origin also be kept secret). As Judge Collins records in his judgment: “She had been raped by a number of inmates with the acquiescence of prison officers. She had also been raped by either a prison officer or a policeman and badly burned with a cigarette in the course of that rape.”

There are strict protocols governing how the UK treats asylum seekers who are believed to be victims of torture. There are clear guidelines in place to help immigration officials and medics identify possible cases and only in exceptional circumstances should they be detained.

But when she presented herself voluntarily to an asylum screening unit in London in February 2006, documenting her multiple rapes in West Africa, Beatrice was detained on the grounds that there were no “compelling or compassionate circumstances” to offer an alternative to detention. This decision to detain her, said the judge, was “seriously flawed procedurally”.

Judge Collins, however, reserved his most trenchant criticisms for the officials who continued to detain her when she arrived at Yarl’s Wood in a highly distressed state and repeating her claims of torture.

The detention centre rules 2001 have unambiguous guidelines – under rule 35 – which state that a medical practitioner must file a report on the case of anyone suspected of being a victim of torture and that the Home Office should be alerted “without delay”.

“Pathetic apology”
In Beatrice’s case, however, there was no proper medical examination of her. What was sent to the Home Office was – in the words of Judge Collins – a “pathetic apology” of a report which took over a week to arrive at the Home Office with “no indication that anyone took it into account at all … it is difficult to imagine a breach which more closely affects somebody who has been the victim of torture and in this case the omission is quite unforgivable”.

He described a “total failure to comply with rule 35” in this case which – given that the problem had been highlighted by the Inspector of Prisons at Yarl’s Wood eleven months previously – constituted “outrageous” conduct.

In one section of the judgment, an immigration official, Ms Raven, is singled out over a letter she sent to Beatrice explaining why her asylum claim had been refused.

“Raped by a policeman”
“You have claimed that you were raped by a policeman and left in a cell with three other men, one of whom forced you to have oral sex with him,” writes Ms Raven. “Rape is not condoned by the secretary of state, but it is considered that it was the actions of a rogue individual abusing his power and not carried out at the instigation of the state.”

Judge Collins expressed astonishment at this: “That was an extraordinary paragraph. Where the organisations of the state permit a prison or police officer to be in a position where an inmate can be abused and tortured by an officer of the institution, and for that to be dismissed as the action of a rogue individual abusing his power with no responsibility on the part of the state, is a breathtaking observation for a United Kingdom official to make.”

Beatrice was held at Yarl’s Wood for a month. She has now been granted leave to remain in the UK for five years on humanitarian grounds.

Beatrice’s statement
She gave the following statement to Channel 4 News: “During my detention in the UK, I felt like a moving corpse. From the time I was told to enter the van until the time I arrived at Yarl’s Wood, I cried continuously – so much so that I lost my voice.

“I was very terrified and ill as a result of what happened to me in Africa. The officers at Yarl’s Wood contributed a great deal to my ordeal, especially as they would just enter my room without any notice or even care if I was naked.

“At this point in time, death was more appealing to me than life. I was strongly thinking about how to take my own life.”

Francis
Channel 4 News has spoken also to a 31-year-old former Ugandan soldier who has also just sued the Home Office for false imprisonment.

From 7 September 2006 to 6 July 2007, he was detained in immigration removal centres, at one point held in a prison in Birmingham following the November 2006 riots in Harmondsworth.

Towards the end of his detention, Dr Helen Groom, on behalf of a medical charity, examined Francis and found “extensive scars across his body”. There were scars, she reported, which were consistent with “an injury caused by a bayonet … being tied for long periods with ropes … being burnt by hot dripping plastic …”

She also discovered “two linear scars beneath each testicle”, adding that “he found it too distressing to explain how he had received these scars”.

Francis told Channel 4 News that when he first arrived in UK detention he tried to explain what had happened to him in Uganda, offering a harrowing account of torture while detained, he says, by the Ugandan army.

He spoke of beatings and being burned by plastic melted from gerry cans, as well as being raped repeatedly by his interrogators.

His lawyer, Harriet Wistrich, sued the Home Office for unlawful detention, claiming that during his time in detention the authorities failed to take seriously his accounts of torture and failed to conduct a proper medical examination of him during his initial custody.

The Home Office conceded that his imprisonment had been unlawful and have been ordered to pay £110,000 in damages.

Only in exceptional circumstances would a person believed to be a victim of torture be detained. The UK takes its international responsibilities seriously – Home Office

Other claims
It is difficult to assess how many others like Francis and Beatrice have suffered a similar fate in the UK. The Home Office could not provide Channel 4 News with figures on how many similar claims have been made in the last five years and an internal government audit of the rule 35 process across the detention estate, which may shed light on the issue, has not yet been disclosed.

One doctor with expertise in assessing torture victims, Dr Frank Arnold, clinical adviser to the Medical Justice Network, has repeatedly lobbied the Home Office on the issue.

Writing to a senior civil servant at the UKBA in July 2009, he said: “I have audited 50 cases who I have seen where there was clear cut clinical evidence leading to a reasonable likelihood that the person was a victim of torture. In none of these was the end-to-end rule 35 process properly followed. Other independent doctors have similar experiences.” Dr Arnold says he has yet to receive a meaningful reply, despite repeated reminders.

2,000 torture victims
Dr Juliet Cohen, from the Medical Foundation of the Care of Victims of Torture, maintains that there could be at least 2000 torture victims being failed by the system every year: “It’s an absolute disgrace, it’s a catch 22 process which is set up to defeat itself…”

Home Office statement
In response to Dr Cohen's claim, the Home Office stated: "We do not recognise this figure. There is an established system for notifying UKBA of any allegation of torture made by a detainee. All such notifications are considered carefully to see whether they call into question the person's continued detention, or impact on their asylum claim.

"All detainees are seen by a nurse within two hours of arrival at an immigration removal centre and are given an opportunity to see a GP within 24 hours. All are asked if they have been the victim of torture and any allegations are then referred to the UK Border Agency to consider.

"Only in exceptional circumstances would a person believed to be a victim of torture be detained. The UK takes its international responsibilities seriously, which is why we consider every case on its individual merits and we will continue to offer protection to those who need it."

There was however, in the statement, no apology from the Home Office offered to Francis or Beatrice for their unlawful imprisonment and when reminded of the comments of Judge Collins, so clearly appalled at the Home Office’s treatment of one torture victim, they had no specific comment to make on the case.