Lounging in aircraft seats and surrounded by Home Office guards, the foreign men fresh out of British jails are on the way to the Middle East on a deportation flight from London.
They don’t want to leave, they could kick up at any minute, so everything is being done to please them.
On the way to the plane at three in the morning, the guards stopped their van with the deportees on board to pick up burgers at an all-night fast-food outlet to ‘give them a treat’ after months, even years, of prison fodder.
As the flight got under way, nicotine chewing gum was handed out to those who felt a craving for a cigarette. Incongruously, the guards offered all the men a pack of playing cards and a colouring book with crayons so they didn’t feel bored during the long-haul journey.
The response from a few was: ‘F*** off. We’re not in a nursery. We’re not children. Leave us alone. We want to sleep.’
For the truth is the mood on deportation flights easily turns ugly. The unorthodox travellers are being forcibly removed from Britain against their will.
Many are hardened criminals – convicted drug dealers, rapists, thieves, even killers – who have abused Britain’s hospitality after slipping into the country illegally.
Flight guards have recently been issued with special face masks to protect them from being spat at. One recently had a tooth knocked out as he tried to control a deportee on a plane. Others are injured when they have to frogmarch a reluctant male migrant up aircraft steps and force him into his seat.
Illegal immigrants pictured being escorted on to a deportation flight earlier this year
A smugglers’ taxi boat in the Channel is overloaded with migrants wearing lifejackets
But in politically correct Britain the guards’ conduct is dictated by human rights’ laws.
‘It doesn’t matter how badly they behave,’ one told us. ‘We have to treat them with kid gloves or we get sacked.
‘We do everything to appease them, to keep them calm. During the flight, we must offer each one water every two hours and regular toilet breaks. If we don’t do this, we get a reprimand. We have to refer to these migrants as “residents” as if they have been paying guests in Britain.’
For months the Daily Mail has been investigating the ailing deportation system, which is costing the taxpayer millions upon millions a year and is strangled by human rights red tape.
We have talked to those who organise or work on the deportation flights from Britain heading to far corners of the world, such as India, Iraq or Vietnam, even the tiny south-east Asian nation of East Timor. Some of them have left their jobs recently and feel at liberty to speak out; others have become brave whistleblowers because they believe ‘something has to change and fast’.
They contacted us over several weeks by email, on social media, and by mobile phone to alert us to the truth behind the catastrophic Home Office failure under successive governments to quickly remove migrants who have overstayed their visas, failed their asylum claims or been imprisoned for serious crimes. The issue of deportations (or the lack of them) has been centre stage this week.
On Thursday, after three days of aborted attempts under the much-vaunted ‘one-in, one-out’ deal signed by Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron, the first small-boat migrant was sent back to France on a scheduled passenger flight. The Indian man was flown from London to Paris. He was followed by an Eritrean, and last night a third migrant, an Iranian man, was sent back to France.
As a result of the first removals under the plan, Britain will start accepting French asylum seekers in return today, provided they do not pose a national security or public-order risk.
Earlier in the week, a last-minute legal challenge forced ministers temporarily to abandon attempts to evict a 25-year-old, also from Eritrea, who came across the Channel in March on a traffickers’ boat, and should have been the first to leave.
He was due to fly out on Tuesday morning but then his lawyers claimed he was a victim of ‘modern slavery’, having suffered under the traffickers who organised his journey via Libya to France (although he never mentioned this problem on arrival in Dover).
The case was fast-tracked to the High Court the same day where an interim injunction barring his removal for 14 days was granted by a judge.
Emma Ginn, director of the charity Medical Justice, said she welcomed the decision. ‘We are in contact with people detained for the one-in, one-out scheme. The vast majority are torture and trafficking survivors,’ she claimed.
Sir Keir Starmer and French president Emmanuel Macron signed a ‘one in, one out’ deal in July this year
This provoked an angry response from Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood. She said migrants were making a mockery of ‘our laws’ and British generosity.
About half of the 92 people in Home Office custody and awaiting removal under the Anglo-French deal are expected to say that they are victims of modern slavery suffered on their journeys to Britain. It has emerged as the go-to claim for those making a last-ditch attempt to stay here.
Acting for the Home Office at the 25-year-old Eritrean’s High Court hearing, Kate Grange KC said the failure to remove the illegal migrant would undermine the deportations: ‘The difficulty is everyone will say I need 14 days more, and that will be extended, extended and extended.’
Our whistleblowers pointed out, however, that our deportation system has long been disastrously clogged up by similar legal challenges: ‘This happens all the time. Migrants’ lawyers often apply for a last-minute judicial review, or what we call a JR, to delay their clients’ departures.
‘If they are granted the review by a judge, their case has to be looked at all over again by the courts because new evidence, such as modern slavery, has been found by their lawyers. It is a blatant delaying tactic.’
Once a judge gives the go-ahead for a review, it means deportees have to be taken off the plane immediately – even if it is about to start taxiing down the runway.
Exasperated staff says charter flights are taking off half empty because of the ‘industrial scale’ of judicial reviews.
In one case recently, a flight to Albania due to return 60 deportees to the capital Tirana was whittled down to 40 passengers by the time it flew out of London because 20 had lawyers who had been granted a review.
‘That is happening every single week,’ said one of our informants.
There are plenty of shocking instances where a JR has been granted when the deportee is in the air. Because there are no mobile phone signals on planes, it is notified to the guards as the flight lands at the other end.
‘That means the migrant, even if he has got to Zimbabwe or Thailand, has to be flown back to Britain as he is still in Home Office custody and his case is covered by British law,’ explained another of our informants.
Whistleblowers told us of their outrage at how migrants routinely ‘game the system’.
They said that both UK immigration lawyers, of which there are thousands, and refugee charities – even those funded by Government or local authority grants – are encouraging them to cheat or twist the asylum and deportation rules to stay in Britain.
Refugee charities hand out arrival packs to boat migrants, for instance, which include the names of lawyers they can contact for advice on claiming asylum or fighting a removal if they are told to get packing.
Many provide specific ‘JR’ helplines to call or WhatsApp when, and if, they need to challenge a future Home Office order to leave.
‘The result is that the use of JRs is strangling the deportation system,’ said our informants. ‘The lawyers throw them around like confetti. It means the system can’t work properly. It is lawfare.’
The guards (known as deportation enforcement officers) are hired through outsourcing giant Mitie which in 2017 won a £524million ten-year deal to provide trained staff for the flights. These men and women often outnumber migrants by three to one, especially if it is a long-haul journey or some of the deportees have a history of violence.
Home secretary Shabana Mahmood (pictured) said migrants were making a mockery of ‘our laws’ and generosity
‘Our job is to get these people on board and deliver them safely. That’s why we stop on the way to the airport to give them a fast-food meal. If ten are in the van, then we buy ten burgers. Anything to keep them happy,’ said a whistleblower.
Another who came forward added: ‘That doesn’t mean they always behave. When they see the plane on the Tarmac for the first time, they realise what is happening is real. They are about to leave Britain. They often flip at this stage.
‘Another trigger point is when the doors of the plane close. They realise it is over. On a Home Office charter flight, we tell them it doesn’t matter what you do, you are going to go. So please be sensible with us. We are only doing our job.
‘On commercial flights, the pilot can refuse to take them if there is a sign of trouble. Every week, seats are booked and then not used for this reason. The ticket wastage is huge.’
One female guard claimed: ‘On the plane, the only protest weapon they have left is spitting or punching. I would rather have a punch than be spat at because of the risk of infection. Sometimes an angry deportee will cover his entire seat with spit so he can’t use it and has to be moved.
‘We often put body constraints on them before they get on board. Some have to be carried shouting and screaming up the steps.
‘They can launch dirty protests, as we call them, particularly at airports if there is a stopover,’ she added. ‘A Moroccan man being returned was taken to the deportation holding room at the Paris airport to await his onward flight on a commercial passenger aircraft. He stripped naked, dumped on the floor, then smeared himself with his own faeces. He was, as a result, taken back to London. He had got his way.’
We were told of a Sheffield-based foreign family of four – believed to be Slovakian – who were recently due to be deported.
Under current rules, deportees with children have to be given several weeks’ notice of the flight by the Home Office.
Unsurprisingly, the quartet were missing on the day they were due to be collected by the guards. The whole rigmarole had to be gone through again. And then a third time. Each time they had disappeared to avoid being thrown out of Britain.
One who watched this ‘expensive farce’ play out explained: ‘On each occasion we had a coach waiting to take them to the airport. It was like a military operation. Most of the deportation enforcement team involved had travelled miles up from the south. But all they found was an empty house. It was a farce. I don’t think the family have ever been made to go home.’
In another shocking example of money being splashed about, the whole middle cabin of a plane was booked on a scheduled flight to Jamaica for a criminal being returned there. There were 13 guards on board to restrain him. ‘It was a terrible waste and it goes on day after day,’ said a man who has been a deportation guard for three years.
As I talked to the guards struggling to do their best in a broken system, I felt sorry for them. ‘From the moment a migrant arrives and mentions the A [asylum] word, they are helped to stay even if they have a suspicious background story,’ said a group of guards who spoke to us.
‘The immigration lawyers, the refugee charities, would not exist without them. So many have fingers in the giant migrant pie. They are spending taxpayers’ money – but it will run out one day.’
