News

Immigration centres housing unsuccessful asylum seekers are failing to provide appropriate mental health care for detainees or adequate services for children, according to the chief inspector of prisons, writes Anabel Unity Sale.

Speaking after the publication of the first five inspection reports produced by the prison inspectorate into four immigration removal centres and one immigration reception centre, Anne Owers said: “We didn’t find a high level of mental health support in the centres and didn’t find a lot of understanding about the psychological trauma these people had been through.”

The inspection reports say that asylum seekers at the Campsfield House, Haslar and Tinsley House immigration removal centres, who had serious mental health problems but were not sectionable, “remained in a custodial rather than therapeutic environment”.

Mental health provision at the Oakington immigration reception centre was criticised by the inspectors for relying on self-assessment and lacking routine mental health screening. The report says: “There is a limited service from the local psychiatric hospital, but staff report a high prevalence of insomnia, anxiety and panic which remained largely un-addressed.”

Children of detained asylum seekers at the Tinsley House centre were left in a holding room unattended while their parents where dealt with. At Oakington there were no facilities for children aged over 12, and they were left to “roam the centre under the theoretical supervision of a parent”.

The prison inspectorate recommends children should be detained for no more than seven days, and that those centres holding children have in place “robust child protection safeguard and effective liaison with local area child protection committees”.

Strip searches were carried out on all detained asylum seekers at the Lindholme and Haslar centres, where detainees complained they were not conducted in a culturally appropriate or professional way.

There was also concern about "unscrupulous " legal advisers able to "prey" on asylum seekers by overcharging them.

Home office minister Beverley Hughes criticised some of the reports’ findings for reflecting only the comments of detainees. “As people are generally unhappy about being detained and removed from the country, it is unsurprising that they express dissatisfaction with their situation,” she said.