A Home Office deportation flight bound for Jamaica left overnight with just seven people on board, after last-minute legal challenges.
The flight, which was originally meant to deport 50 people from Stansted Airport in Essex took off just before 01:30 BST.
Lawyers lashed out saying “it was an enormous waste of taxpayers’ money”.
A Home Office spokesperson said “all those on board were convicted criminals with no legal right to remain in the UK”.
British Home Secretary Priti Patel is required by law to issue a deportation order for any foreign national who has been given a jail sentence of one year or more. This includes persistent offenders, and those convicted of serious crimes like theft and murder. She may also deport them if it’s deemed “conducive to the public good”.
A group of campaigners had been trying to stop the flight, insisting that some may have a right to British citizenship.
It’s been reported that on average, a deportation flight costs around £200,000, so the Home Office could have spent about £30K per person on the handful of passengers they returned to the Caribbean this week.
This is not the first time that a deportation flight to Jamaica has failed. In December, an aircraft that was supposed to have 50 Jamaican nationals on board left with just 13 people instead. On that occasion, the Home Office acknowledged some of those due to fly may have been victims of modern slavery.
The home secretary is keen to demonstrate her commitment to securing Britain’s borders, however, with record numbers of migrants arriving in small boats on the Kent coast and continued problems organizing deportation flights there is obvious frustration within the department.
Maria Thomas, a Solicitor in the Public Law and Immigration Department at Duncan Lewis, described the deportation flight as “brutal”.
She said, “some deportees did not fly after claims they were entitled to stay in the UK as part of the Windrush Scheme, which grants residency to many West Indian migrants and their descendants”.
Others, she said, had tested positive for Covid, while two of her clients – one in his 20s and another in his 30s who have lived in the UK since they were 10 and 11 – were taken to hospital in the afternoon after attempting to take their own lives in a government immigration removal centre.
“It’s extremely concerning,” Ms. Thomas added. “It’s an enormous waste of taxpayers’ money to charter a plane”.
The Director of Detention Action, Bella Sankey, tweeted, “the situation was complete chaos” and the Home Office “hasn’t got a clue what it’s doing”.
The Home Office said “extensive checks” had been carried out to ensure that no-one on board were eligible for the Windrush Scheme, however, the 43 people who did not fly had committed crimes, including murder and rape, with combined sentences totaling 245 years.
It said, 18 of the legal challenges were made in the 24 hours prior to departure.
A statement said: “The health and welfare of those in our care is of the utmost importance and all removal centres have dedicated health facilities run by doctors and nurses, “We only ever return those with no legal right to remain in the UK, including foreign national offenders”.
“The length of time a person has lived in the UK, as well as the strength of their social, cultural and family ties, are considered,” the Home Office said.
“Returnees are provided with the opportunity to raise claims prior to their deportation, including human rights claims”.
