The non-statutory investigation held its first public meeting today
The Manston Immigration Processing Centre in Manston(Image: Gareth Fuller/PA)
An inquiry into the “overcrowded, squalid and unsanitary” conditions for asylum seekers at Manston processing centre in 2022 has been told to put those detained there “at the heart” of the probe. The non-statutory investigation held its first public meeting on Thursday (January 15) after it first launched on March 17 last year.
The investigation is looking at the “decisions, actions and circumstances” which led to the conditions experienced by people at Manston Short-Term Holding Facility in Kent between June and November 2022. Manston was at points “significantly overcapacity”, stretching from its capacity level of 1,650 people to 4,000 at the height of the pressures where conditions “deteriorated over time”, the inquiry heard.
Jesse Nicholls, counsel representing Duncan Lewis Solicitors and Deighton Pierce Glynn Solicitors on behalf of a number of those detained at the centre, said: “The mistreatment of our clients at Manston and the deplorable conditions to which they were subject had the effect of dehumanising them. That dehumanisation should not be reinforced and compounded by characterising our clients and others by their immigration status – they were people, human beings, their experiences matter. They matter.
“They should, we suggest, be at the heart of this inquiry.” The inquiry heard the probe will consider evidence of misconduct by some staff members, alongside human experiences, legal compliance and infectious diseases.
“The fact that a detainee died during the period of his detention from diphtheria brings this issue into sharp focus,” lead counsel to the inquiry Clair Dobbin KC said. Hussein Haseeb Ahmed, 31, died at the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Hospital in Margate on November 19 after being held at Manston after crossing the Channel a week earlier.
The inquiry’s scope has been expanded to include addressing how he died and the circumstances of his death. Ms Dobbin said: “In this inquiry, stark issues arise because people were being detained in large numbers in conditions which were not intended for detention beyond 24 hours.
“The net result was not simply people remained at Manston beyond 24 hours but they were in conditions not designed for staying in any sort of long term, and which at points became overcrowded, squalid and unsanitary.” She also set out that the inquiry’s approach is for fair process and dignity for all participants.
Ms Dobbin said: “The arrival of people on small boats is a divisive and emotive issue in the United Kingdom, but this inquiry is not a commission into migration or the seeking of asylum, and nor has it been set up to consider the reasons why specific individuals have come to enter the UK by boat. Its principal concern is the conditions in which those men, women and children were kept upon their arrival at Manston and why those conditions arose.”
Inquiry evidence is expected to begin to be heard in autumn.
