UK deportation flight leaves with just seven onboard

(Representative photo)

Only seven people were deported to Jamaica on a Home Office charter plane in the early hours of yesterday at an estimated cost of £43,000 a person, despite 90 being earmarked originally for the flight. Concerns were raised about the UK’s decision to go ahead with the flight due to opposition from the Jamaican government because of Covid worries. Fears were also expressed about the vulnerability of some of those due to fly because of trafficking indicators and mental health problems. A series of urgent high court injunction applications seeking to block some of the deportations continued almost until the flight took off at 1am yesterday morning. The estimated cost of a long-haul Home Office charter operation is thought to be about £300,000. With seven people onboard that figure equates to about £43,000 for each deportee. While the vast majority of those due to fly were taken off the flight, the seven people who flew are believed to include three who were taken from prison. Of the four taken from immigration detention, one was aged 64 and another 66. One is thought to be suffering from mental confusion and is physically frail and had to be carried on to the plane. He is believed to have a Windrush case. Another recently lost a child in a case ruled by a coroner to be due to medical negligence and he had to leave his partner, the mother of their child, to grieve alone. At least five of those due to fly had trafficking indicators due to county lines grooming. The Home Office gave the Jamaican government assurances that nobody at risk of Covid would be on the flight after at least two cases were confirmed in the detention centre days before the flight took off. It said everyone due to fly had a negative PCR test. One man asked to return to Jamaica but due to administrative issues was not put on the flight and was taken back to prison. Karen Doyle of the campaign group Movement for Justice, who worked on the cases of 30 people due to fly, only three of whom ultimately boarded the plane, said: “When you prioritise the politics and optics of deportation over human life you are going to get gross injustice.” Bella Sankey, the director of the charity Detention Action, said the flight was a “watershed moment”. “This chaotic flight is the beginning of the end for mass Home Office charter flights. Horrifying suicide attempts and an unwell Windrush man being carried on to the plane, the disasters are endless. This is not how a civilised country conducts itself and public disquiet is rightly growing.”