Yarl's Wood urgently needs more female staff, says prisons chief
Nick Hardwick also says male staff should be banned from entering female detainees' rooms without invitation
Alan Travis, home affairs editor
The Guardian, Tuesday 29 October 2013
The chief inspector of prisons has called for a ban on male staff entering the rooms of female detainees uninvited and for the urgent recruitment of female staff at Yarl's Wood immigration removal centre after allegations of sexual abuse by staff.
Nick Hardwick has condemned the sexual abuse of women at the privately-run centre in Bedfordshire, saying that two members of staff who were found to have engaged in sexual activity with a female detainee were rightly dismissed.
But he says in an inspection report published on Tuesday that a subsequent investigation based on 50 confidential interviews with randomly selected detainees carried out four weeks ago failed to find evidence of more widespread abuse.
"Most women again told us that Yarl's Wood was a largely respectful and safe place. We found no evidence of a wider culture of victimisation or [that] systematic abuse had developed," said Hardwick. "However, this exercise reinforced our view that women's histories of victimisation were not sufficiently acknowledged by the authorities."
Hardwick added: "There were insufficient female staff for a predominantly women's establishment, and women detainees complained that male staff entered their rooms without waiting for a reply after knocking. They were also embarrassed by male officers carrying out searches of their rooms and personal property."
The report called for more female staff to be recruited as a matter of urgency and said men should not enter women's rooms without an explicit invitation except in emergencies at the Serco-run centre.
The original unannounced inspection carried out in June found that improvements had been made at Yarl's Wood with staff working hard to run a safe and decent establishment although some significant concerns remained.
In the six months before the June inspection, 867 detainees had been deported, a further 1,188 had been released and 198 transferred to other detention facilities.
Inspectors went back on September 30 to conduct fresh interviews after the new allegations of sexual abuse.
The chief inspector says that the lack of progress in their immigration cases caused the women the most distress and the inspectors identified a number of women who had been detained for very long periods – including one who had been there for almost four years.
Hardwick says that for the most vulnerable of the women the decision to detain them in the first place appears much too casual.
His report says that none of the women were there because they had been charged with a criminal offence or had been detained through normal judicial circumstances. Many had been victimised by traffickers or were in abusive relationships before they were detained.
He says that several mentally ill women had been detained before being sectioned and released to a more appropriate medical facility.
He also says they came across examples of pregnant women who had been detained without the evidence of exceptional circumstances needed to justify this.
Hardwick said: "Yarl's Wood has had a troubled past, punctuated by serious disturbances and controversy surrounding the detention of children. This inspection found that the improvements we have noted since the detention of children ended have continued. Nevertheless, despite the good progress made, improvement continues to be necessary."