The Brook House Inquiry report, published in September 2023 examined abuse at Brook House occurring over several months in 2017. It found numerous instances of violent abuse against detained people, and routine, layered failures to care for and safeguard them, alongside a “toxic” and “dehumanising” culture. The Inquiry report itself observed that these problems were not isolated or confined to Brook House, and often persisted at the time of writing.
JRS UK’s research – conducted with people with more recent experience of detention at different detention centres – finds clear, and deeply disturbing, parallels between practices and culture revealed by the Brook House Inquiry and recent and ongoing practices and culture across UK immigration detention.
“I was locked in a small cell in the back of a van with my daughter. I was struggling to breathe. I asked to go to the toilet. I have a medical condition which means I have to urinate frequently so I needed to go. They told me they could not stop. I begged them to stop, I said I needed the toilet. Eventually they stopped at services and they said loudly in the front to each other – ‘oh I really need the toilet’ and they went, but they did not take me. I was crying. We continued on the next leg of the journey and eventually I could not hold it any longer, it was like torture, and I wet myself. They came and gave me a pink plastic bag to urinate in, but it was too late then. When they took me out of the van at the other end, it was all down my trousers and in my shoes. I was allowed to change my trousers but I did not have another pair of shoes. When they took me out of the van at the other end I had to walk in my wet shoes and felt such indignity. It was so humiliating. One of the officers apologised for what had happened afterwards but it did not change the way they had treated me.”
Mistreatment and abuse in detention continue today. The events and culture that came to light at Brook House in 2017 are – still – endemic across the UK’s detention estate and have deep systemic roots.
The government response to the Brook House Inquiry Report, published in March 2024, suggests little will be done in response to the report. JRS UK are calling for change!
On Tuesday 14th May at 5.30pm, Dr Sophie Cartwright presented her research findings. Watch the webinar recording:
Write to your MP to express your concern about immigration detention and call for change.
You can find our recommendations in our report to share with them.
You can use the following as talking points:
“Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.”
Hebrews 13:3
We need your help to raise awareness of what is going on in immigration detention. Click the links below to share the report on social media: