Mrs Justice May held that any inquiry must be able to compel the 21 staff from the security firm G4S to give evidence. She said ‘the egregious nature of the breaches’ meant any inquiry into the claims should have these powers. She also ruled
that the detainees must be entitled to publicly-funded lawyers since, for justice to be done in ‘any meaningful way’, the detainees ‘must be able to meet their [alleged] abusers on equal terms’. Further, the inquiry must be
held in public, she said.
The case was brought by two former detainees, MA and BB, who featured in an undercover BBC Panorama programme on the centre in 2017. The programme revealed staff mocking and assaulting detainees.
Duncan Lewis solicitor Lewis Kett, who represented MA, said the judgment ‘ensures that those officers can be held to account’. He said a full statutory inquiry is now necessary.
Martha Spurrier, Liberty director, said: ‘To even begin to put an end to this inhumanity the government must implement a 28 -time limit on detention.’
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