Cruel, paranoid, failing: inside the Home Office

Something is badly wrong at the heart of one of Britain’s most important ministries. How did it become so broken?

For the thousands of people who end up on the wrong side of the Home Office each year, there is often a sudden moment of disbelief. This can’t be happening, people tell themselves. They can’t do this, can they?

For Ruhena Miah, a sales assistant born and raised in the West Midlands, this moment came when she received a letter saying that if she wanted to marry the man she loved, she would have to move to Bangladesh. For Tayjay Thompson, a young man convicted of a drugs offence when he was 17, it was when he was told he would be deported to Jamaica, a country he’d left as a toddler. For Monique Hawkins, a Dutch software engineer, it was when her application for a residency permit was rejected, despite the fact she had lived in the UK for 24 years. For Omar, a refugee from Afghanistan (who asked me not to use his real name), it was when he stepped off the plane at Heathrow and discovered that he was being taken to a building that looked to him very much like a prison.

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Ex-police reveal bribes and threats used to cover up corruption in 70s London

BBC documentary to examine incidents that led to setting up of unit on which Line of Duty’s AC-12 is based

One of London’s most senior police officers, described by a colleague as “the greatest villain unhung”, was believed to be involved in major corruption in the 1970s but never prosecuted, according to a new documentary on police malpractice.

Former officers who exposed corruption at the time describe how they were threatened that they would end up in a “cement raincoat” if they informed on fellow officers and were shunned by colleagues when they did.

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UK failed to inform EU countries about almost 200 killers and rapists

Exclusive: total of 112,490 criminal convictions not sent to relevant EU capitals over eight-year period

The conviction of 109 killers, 81 rapists and a man found guilty of both crimes in UK courts was not passed on to the criminals’ home EU countries due to a massive computer failure and subsequent cover-up, the Guardian can reveal.

The most serious cases are among a total of 112,490 criminal convictions not sent to the relevant EU capitals over an eight-year period due to a catastrophic computer error, which some fear has put lives at risk.

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Shamima Begum court decision brings shame on UK | Letters

Readers respond to the supreme court decision that Begum will not have her citizenship restored

Every day it seems the Guardian serves up another reason for being ashamed to be British. On Friday, it was the case of Shamima Begum (Shamima Begum loses fight to restore UK citizenship after supreme court ruling, 26 February). It makes it particularly difficult that I’m tutoring someone who is hoping to take an A-level in British politics. All the books list human rights and explain how carefully protected they are in our system. Article 5 is supposed to protect the right to liberty and freedom from arbitrary detention. Yet the supreme court is unable to protect Begum’s rights against a home secretary who is operating a policy based on pandering to public opinion in return for (hoped-for) votes.

We are told that legal protections are particularly important in difficult cases – that is, cases where an individual presents as unpleasant or undeserving. Begum was a teenager who took the extraordinary step of leaving her country to defend something she believed was deserving of her support. But even if she left with the firm intention of terrorising her fellow citizens, does this mean she should be deprived of her rights? It is a matter not of what Begum deserves but of what our national honour, and our constitution, deserve. This has been increasingly in doubt in recent years, with the government threatening to renege over the Northern Irish border agreement; not to mention the Chagos Islands and our participation in rendering citizens to be tortured during the “war on terror”.
Jeremy Cushing
Exeter

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Lawyers seek justice for women jailed for killing abusive partners

A failure to account for previous violence has led to at least 20 unsafe murder convictions, campaigners claim

It was a specific moment in which she thought she might die that drove Stella to the brink. “He had strangled me at the bottom of the stairs and that frightened me because you can get punched in the face or your hand broken, but I had never lost my breath before,” she recalled.

For Nicole, she was “pushed over the edge” when violence by her partner triggered a post-traumatic response to historic abuse by other men. “I was getting flashbacks of abuse ... everything came to a head and I just lost it.”

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Home Office admits 15,000 people deleted from police records

Policing minister, Kit Malthouse, reveals figures a month after data blunder was first revealed

A blunder led to the records of more than 15,000 people being deleted in their entirety from the Police National Computer, the Home Office has admitted. News of the data loss emerged last month, but on Monday the government put numbers on what had been erased.

The policing minister, Kit Malthouse, said in a written statement that a total of 209,550 offence records relating to 112,697 individuals had been deleted from the PNC, which is run by the Home Office and used by forces across the UK. That included the entire records of 15,089 people.

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Covid restrictions on visits to detained children and parents are ‘cruel’, MPs told

Prison, care home and mental health institution visit limitations failing to consider impact on family life, campaigners say

Children with parents in prison have been forgotten during lockdown, campaigners have told MPs.

The cross-party human rights committee is looking at the impact on the right to family life, with a focus on people in institutional settings including prisons, care homes and mental health facilities.

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Authorities had four warnings about Reading attacker’s mental health

Refugee support chief warned of Khairi Saadallah carrying out ‘London Bridge-type scenario’

Reading attacker Khairi Saadallah given whole-life prison sentence

Repeated warnings were given that Khairi Saadallah, who murdered three men in a Reading park last summer, could carry out a “London Bridge-type scenario” shortly before the killings took place, the Guardian has learned.

Documents reveal that Nick Harborne, chief executive of the Reading Refugee Support Group (RRSG), who had had dealings with Saadallah since 2016, made four specific warnings to health and probation professionals between 4 December 2019 and 12 June 2020 that Saadallah could commit a violent crime if he did not receive appropriate support.

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Doubts emerge in US over future of Assange extradition case

Joe Biden’s priorities could scupper extradition of WikiLeaks co-founder, says departing Virginia attorney

The American prosecutor seeking to put Julian Assange on trial in the US has said he is uncertain if Joe Biden’s incoming White House administration will continue to seek the extradition of the WikiLeaks co-founder.

Zachary Terwilliger, who was appointed by Donald Trump, made the comments as it was announced that he was stepping down as the US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

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‘Just 15 minutes out every day’: a teenage prisoner’s life during Covid

One young inmate tells how being locked up alone for hours and not being able to see his family affected his mental health

For five months, 16-year-old Sean* spent around 23 hours a day in his cell. He tried to get through the time by doing puzzles and calling his lawyer, asking her again and again to help him get bail.

When he arrived at the secure training centre (STC) it was already in lockdown. He was just 15. “I had to go into total isolation for the first two weeks, just 15 minutes out every day. It was my first time in custody and at first I thought this is OK, it’s a chance to slow things down. But after two weeks it began to affect me. You couldn’t do anything. I could hear voices calling on the wing, but I only saw the guard.”

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UK Covid policy for children in detention ‘cruel and inhumane’, says UN expert

Solitary confinement to stop virus spread increases risk of self-harm and suicide and could have a lifelong impact, M0J warned

The UK government’s policy of allowing children in detention to be locked alone in their cells for up to 23 hours a day under emergency Covid-19 measures is “extreme and inhumane” and could lead to lifelong mental health damage, according to the UN special rapporteur on torture and leading child health experts.

Since March, facilities have been able to keep children as young as 12 confined alone in their cells for all but around 40 minutes a day. The measures, which were put in place to stop potential Covid-19 outbreaks, affect around 500 under 18-year-olds in youth detention and another 4,000 18-21-year-olds held in adult prisons.

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New UK app records police encounters and saves footage in cloud

Legal Lifelines app intended to provide alternative evidence to police bodycam footage

A black criminal lawyer has designed a free app to allow anyone at risk of being stopped and searched by police to film incidents to ensure they have an “independent witness” to any interactions.

Michael Herford a criminal lawyer with Legal Lifelines, said the app could help provide a different perspective on an incident from police bodycam footage, or evidence when a police bodycam was not turned on or its footage was lost.

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Julian Assange extradition hearing begins at Old Bailey

WikiLeaks founder in court to face US accusations of stealing military secrets

The WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, has appeared at the Old Bailey at the start of an extradition hearing on an 18-count US indictment that accuses him of recruiting hackers to steal military secrets.

Wearing a dark suit, tie and white shirt, Assange, 49, sat behind a glass security screen at the back of the court, his glasses pushed back on top of his head.

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Life after deportation: ‘No one tells you how lonely you’re going to be’

The Windrush scandal brought the cruelty of Britain’s deportation policies to light, but the practice continues to this day – and shockingly, it is made possible by UK aid money. By Luke de Noronha

Sitting in the computer room of Open Arms drop-in centre, a homeless shelter in Kingston, Jamaica, I turned on my recorder and asked Jason to tell me about his life there. In his distinct east London accent, he described arguments and fights with other residents – about chores, use of the showers, missing possessions. Then, checking no one was around, he complained about the management, claiming that they spoke to him like a child and had threatened to kick him out. Nor did he feel safe when he left the shelter. “People are trying to kill me down here. I need to get back to England,” he said. But having been deported from the UK, and finding himself destitute in Jamaica, he had few options. Jason had been exiled home.

Jason was born in 1984 in Kingston. When he was about five, his mother and grandmother moved to the UK, and so for most of his childhood he was raised by his aunties in Kingston. He had a good childhood in Jamaica. For his wider family, though, the option to move to the UK was viewed as “the dream ticket”, and so, in August 2000, when he was 15, Jason and his 13-year-old brother were put on a flight to London to join their mother. (The official story was that they were just planning to visit their grandmother for a few weeks.) This was the first time Jason had ever been on a plane, and it remains the only commercial flight he has taken.

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Labour MP Dawn Butler stopped by police in London

Car driven by a friend pulled over by officers who later admitted they made a mistake

Dawn Butler, the Labour MP and former shadow equalities minister, has accused the police of being institutionally racist after she was stopped while driving to Sunday lunch with a friend.

Butler, a strong critic of police stop-and-search tactics, said the car was being driven by her male friend, who like Butler is black, when two police cars pulled it over in Hackney, east London. Officers said the vehicle was registered in North Yorkshire.

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Watchdog exposes ‘unacceptable’ treatment of children in English court cells

Children with autism among those detained in England and Wales and left for hours in sometimes filthy cells

Children with Down’s syndrome and autism were among those left for hours in court cells while they waited for legal representation or transport, a custody watchdog has revealed in a damning report.

The treatment of some young people, including those with disabilities, was labelled unacceptable and a “matter of embarrassment” for the criminal justice system by the Lay Observers (LO), volunteers who inspect court custody conditions and transport arrangements for detainees in England and Wales.

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‘It’s just too long’: children in detention may face Covid-19 restrictions until 2022

Rules allowing up to 22 hours of solitary confinement for young offenders could continue, in move lawyers say is ‘very concerning’

The Ministry of Justice has said that new rules that allow youth detention facilities to hold children in solitary confinement for up to 22 hours a day to prevent the spread of Covid-19 could remain in place for two years despite lockdown measures being relaxed for the rest of the UK.

Lawyers have told the Guardian that time out of cells and access to education are still being severely curtailed in many facilities across the country.

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Thousands of high-risk offenders in UK ‘freed into homelessness’

Report warns of reoffending risk as 3,713 ex-prisoners in England lack safe housing

Thousands of high-risk convicted criminals, including those classed as violent and sexual offenders, were being released from prison in England into homelessness, increasing the likelihood of their reoffending, inspectors warned.

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation (HMIP) said in a report that it was “particularly disturbed” to find that at least 3,713 people supervised by the National Probation Service, which is responsible for high-risk offenders, had left prison and become homeless from 2018 to 2019.

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Former England boxer Kelvin Bilal Fawaz wins 16-year battle to stay in UK

Exclusive: Fawaz, who was trafficked to the UK from Nigeria as a child, won his Home Office appeal last week

The former England boxer Kelvin Bilal Fawaz has won his 16-year legal battle to live and work in the UK after the Home Office granted him leave to remain for 30 months.

Fawaz, who has represented England six times and was once an amateur champion, has been struggling to establish his adult nationality and immigration status after being trafficked from Nigeria to the UK as a child and kept in domestic servitude.

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‘Unrealistic’ appeals system fails prisoners who have been victims of abuse – report

One month window to challenge convictions in England and Wales means women who have experienced trauma are unfairly criminalised, campaigners say

Women who have been unfairly convicted or sentenced to jail are being denied the chance to redress miscarriages of justice because the appeals system in England and Wales is not fit for purpose, the law group Appeal has alleged.

In particular, those who have been victims of trauma or domestic abuse are unable to make a legal challenge due to the “unrealistic” 28-day window allowed to make an application to the criminal Court of Appeal, the report highlights.

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