David Modell writes about his experiences making The Kids Britain Doesn't Want
Immigration officers dressed in stab vests, armed with extendable steel batons and handcuffs, enter children's bedrooms before dawn, wake them and order them out of their homes. The children are then loaded into vans and taken to immigration removal centres - prisons in everything but name.
Who thought that this was in any way acceptable? Did anybody ever consider how this might be perceived by the child on the receiving end? Or even pause to think about the psychological harm that will be caused?
Perhaps these questions were simply not asked when the practice was being developed, signed off by politicians and then executed. Perhaps nobody really cared, because these children were asylum seekers.
In some ways, I found this programme, The Kids Britain Doesn't Want, one of the most disturbing I've yet made. This wasn't an exploration of an isolated case of malpractice or systemic corruption. The abuse of the individual contributors was caused by a system that is doing the job it has been designed to do.
After a generation of poisonous media coverage and excitable politicians playing to the worst instincts of their voters, 'asylum' is now talked of only as a problem and asylum seekers are seen as undesirable at best. As a consequence, we have allowed successive governments to develop an asylum system that is designed to keep the numbers down, at any cost.
The cases we featured in The Kids Britain Doesn't Want were not rare, isolated examples. They were the ones who were brave enough to speak out. During our discussions before filming started, they all agreed to take part because they believed it might do something to help others in their position.
Mehrshad
Mehrshad was one of many children we spoke to who have suffered appalling trauma because of their treatment at the hands of the UK Border Agency. One ten-year-old girl, who was unable to take part, had tried to commit suicide while incarcerated in Yarl's Wood.
Mohibullah
Mohibullah is just one of hundreds of disturbed young Afghans who are left to wander the streets of Croydon. Most of those I spoke to had had their claims for refuge refused and many were fighting battles with the local authority about their age. These age-disputed kids have a miserable time. Not only have some of them been held in adult prisons, they are separated from their families and have no access to education or employment.
Mary
Mary's case is possibly the most shocking, but once we understood how flawed the system was we knew there had to be cases of people who had been wrongly returned to face exactly the kind of persecution they feared. What is truly appalling is that the Home Office are trying to send her back again, even after she's obviously been tortured.
After looking at the Home Office case against her, a leading immigration barrister told us that instead of conceding they were terribly wrong to remove her and offering her an apology, the Home Office (and immigration appeal judge) have concocted an incredible version of events that allows them to continue to disbelieve her. She said that, in her experience, Mary's case was typical of the culture of disbelief that exists in the asylum system.
We have forgotten that refugees are people who have experienced appalling hardships and have extraordinary stories. I came away from this project believing that something very dark is happening in our asylum system, and nothing will change until our own attitudes do.
