Home Office contractors tried to sell drugs to migrants at Manston

2022-11-04

Home Office contractors tried to sell drugs to migrants at Manston: Security staff are disciplined after asylum seekers accuse them of trying to push cannabis at crisis-hit compound

Asylum seekers complained that security staff attempted to sell them cannabis
Some guards also raised concerns that their colleagues were smoking the drug
The Home Office said the staff members were ‘swiftly removed from the site’

Home Office contractors tried to sell illegal drugs to migrants at the Manston processing centre, it has been reported.

Asylum seekers at the facility in Kent complained that security staff attempted to sell them cannabis, according to The Guardian.

It was also revealed that some security guards raised concerns that their colleagues were smoking the drug while on duty.

The Home Office said that the staff members were disciplined and ‘swiftly removed from the site’.

A Home Office statement said: ‘The Home Office expects the highest standards of professionalism from all those contracted to manage the detention estate.

‘The individuals involved in this incident were swiftly removed from the site and we will continue to take robust action against those whose behaviour falls beneath those high standards.’

Enver Solomon, the chief executive of the Refugee Council said: ‘This is appalling and yet further evidence that Manston is unfit for purpose with men, women and children subject to inhumane treatment.’

Home Secretary Suella Braverman toured immigration centres yesterday while battling to grip the migrant crisis amid threats of legal action, sexual assault allegations at a hotel housing asylum seekers and international criticism of her use of language.

Home Office contractors tried to sell illegal drugs to migrants at the Manston processing centre (pictured), it has been reported

It comes as Downing Street said that more than 1,200 people have left the massively overcrowded centre in the past four days.

Political anger was mounting at the debacle amid a slew of further revelations about migrants being allowed to leave Manston with barely any checks on their destination and others being abandoned on the street in London.

A minister also sparked a row when he accused those crossing the Channel in small boats of having ‘a bit of a cheek’ for complaining about conditions they faced after getting here illegally.

Today No10 said the number of people at Manston in Kent had fallen to 2,600, with 1,200 people taken off site in the last four days.

Its capacity should be 1,600 who stay for around 24 hours before being found further accommodation. But as many as 4,000 have been kept there in recent weeks.

Hundreds of people have been encouraged to leave Manston in northern Kent after simply providing a forwarding address, the Telegraph reported.

Braverman, who was reinstated to her ministerial post just over a week ago, met Border Force teams in Dover to discuss Channel crossings operations before visiting the scandal-hit Manston processing centre via RAF helicopter to hear updates from staff

Ministers face calls to get a grip as it emerged that people who crossed the Channel in small boats were being allowed to leave an arrival center without undergoing basic checks, to ease overcrowding

Last night it was revealed a second group of migrants was dumped in London this week and forced to sleep rough on the streets of the capital.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: ‘My understanding is there are currently 2,600 people on the site, so over 1,200 people have been removed over the last four days.’

Asked if he expects this to drop to 1,600 over the next four days, he said: ‘I’d defer to Home Office if they’re putting a particular timescale on it.

‘Obviously that does depend slightly on some of the variables such as the level of crossings we see.’

He also said that the Home Office was looking at ways to increase capacity at the site near Ramsgate.

Immigration minister Robert Jenrick visited homes in Dover with local MP Natalie Elphicke.

As the pair walked along the road, a local resident, Thomas Dougan, 48, who lives in Aycliffe, shouted: ‘Are you Government? What a waste of space.

‘Are you the loony party? They’d do better than you or Green Party.’

Immigration minister Robert Jenrick has visited homes in Dover with local MP Natalie Elphicke

Hundreds of people have been encouraged to leave Manston in northern Kent after simply providing a forwarding address, the Telegraph reported

The Home Secretary toured immigration centres yesterday while battling to grip the migrant crisis amid threats of legal action, sexual assault allegations at a hotel housing asylum seekers and international criticism of her use of language

Some 14 council leaders in Kent have written to Home Secretary Suella Braverman

Westminster City Council leader Adam Hug today confirmed the council’s rough sleeping service is looking after a number of asylum seekers from Manston who arrived at in central London with nowhere to go.

‘The chaos that is engulfing the arrival centre at Manston is now impacting on councils across the country. It is not acceptable that people seeking asylum in the UK are effectively dumped at a coach station and left to fend for themselves, we need a more humane and frankly better organised response,’ he said.

‘We are happy do our share to look after asylum seekers – we have plenty of hotels in Westminster, that is not the issue. What is the issue is that the Home Office seems to have descended into panic with no clear picture of where people are going.’

But a senior minister criticised migrants – who were the target of a suspected far-right petrol bomb attack this week – for complaining about conditions.

Home Office minister Chris Philp said told Sky that Manston was legally compliant days after immigration minister Robert Jenrick suggested it was not.

And he later told Times Radio: ‘If people choose to enter a country illegally, and unnecessarily … it’s a bit of a cheek to then start complaining about the conditions.

‘And you don’t even have to come here, they were in France already and previously often passed through Belgium, Germany, and many other countries on the way.’

Home Office minister Chris Philp said told Sky that Manston was legally compliant days after immigration minister Robert Jenrick suggested it was not. And he later told Times Radio: ‘If people choose to enter a country illegally, and unnecessarily … it’s a bit of a cheek to then start complaining about the conditions’

He added that the groups of migrants from Manston left stranded in London had told immigration officials they had addresses to go to and suggested something may have been ‘lost in translation’.

Some 14 council leaders in Kent have written to Home Secretary Suella Braverman, saying: ‘We have hundreds of mostly Albanian [migrants] not claiming asylum and being bailed and dropped at mid-Kent train stations with no follow-up where they go or if they leave Kent.’

Meanwhile ministers are also facing pushback from locals in Kent who are at the forefront of the arrival of more than 40,000 people in small boats this year.

Ashford MP Damian Green, a Tory former minister and the MP for Ashford, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘Kent itself is really under strain because it is not just all the points of accommodation, it’s the fact that you need to find school places for these children.

‘There are (local) children in Kent being told there are no school places around town. This is completely unacceptable, we have to spread the burden around the country and we have to make the whole system faster and more efficient.

‘If we don’t do that this will become a long-running problem which will really affect people in their daily lives.’

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Alistair Carmichael said: ‘Chris Philp’s comments reveal a shocking and callous complacency over the disaster unfolding at Manston. It is unbelievable that as we hear reports of sexual assualts, disease, and chronic overcrowding, his response is to accuse those who complain of ”cheek”.

‘Rather than dismissing the problem he should start to show some leadership. People have had enough of the endless evasion, chaos and incompetence we have seen from the government on this issue.’

She has come under mounting political pressure over the illegal conditions at the site near Ramsgate, where at one point as many as 4,000 people were being detained for weeks in a site intended to hold 1,600 for a matter of days.

Downing Street said the number has since reduced to 2,700, after more than 1,000 were moved in the last few days, and that the Prime Minister was receiving twice daily updates on the situation.

Mr Philp added that the UK is a ‘generous country’ in accommodating asylum seekers.

He said: ‘We’re spending something like two or three billion pounds a year looking after people who have entered the country illegally and unnecessarily. I think, frankly, that is pretty generous, actually … our asylum accommodation is better than most European countries.

‘In terms of people who are genuinely in need of protection, we are a generous country … this is a very generous country that looks after people in genuine need.’

Stephen Evans, chief executive of Norwich Council, has said the Home Office did not give its local officials any warning that migrants from Manston were being bussed into the city on Thursday.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme, Mr Evans said he first read about the group coming to Norwich in a news article.

‘We hadn’t been told. I checked back with colleagues at City Hall – they hadn’t been told. So, we don’t know who they are and we don’t know where they’ve gone to in the city,’ he said.

‘I think that’s part of the problem here. As a sector, councils are asking for early engagement from the Home Office and for us to be consulted.’

He added that ‘of course’ councils need to know where migrants are in terms of safety and safeguarding, and often the Home Office usually give local leaders just a few days’ notice when it comes to opening a hotel for migrants in their area.

‘If the Government engaged councils earlier in the process, we could be on the front foot and it would be a better system for sure,’ he said.

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