{UAH} Tortured, abused: One woman’s experience at UK immigration centre

Tortured, abused: One woman's experience at UK immigration centre

Hellen Ahimbisibwe who says she was tortured at the United Kingdom detention centre. COURTESY PHOTO 

Hellen Ahimbisibwe left Uganda in 2003 to go to London on a visitor's visa on the invitation of her aunt. While there, she tried acquiring residential status which took long. When her application was rejected, she was sent to Yarl's Wood Detention Centre where she claims to have been tortured by British authorities. She told her story to the Saturday Monitor.

Kampala- I went to the United Kingdom in 2003 on my aunt's invitation. Before my visa could expire, she helped me apply for residential status. After seven years of waiting during which why visa expired, I was told my application had been rejected but had another chance to apply, which I did.

By this time, I was already working in people's homes as a cleaner. In my free time, I would also volunteer at a church as an usher. I also moved out of my aunt's place and started staying with friends; it's hard renting a house in Britain without a residential status.

On my second application, I was asked to pay a fee of 800 pounds (about Shs3.2 million) and attach all relevant documents, including the Certificate of the Life in the UK test. The certificate also indicated my immigration number, meaning I was not in the country illegally.
At the beginning of 2011, I got a reply telling me to pack my belongings and report to the Home Office. When I got there, I was searched and I was sent to Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre.

Yarl's Wood is an immigration removal centre run under the Detention Centre Rules 2001. I found it manned by people dressed in stripped pink or blue uniform with name tags. When I asked why I was being taken into the cell, I was told that was the procedure.

In detention
The three months I stayed at the centre, I learnt so many things that I never expected of a First World country like Britain. There were inmates who had been in the place for more than two years and during my stay, I was interrogated several times.
One day, I was told they had secured a ticket for me to return to my home country and that I had to pack by belongings ready to leave. I was taken to a glass-walled room and subjected to a search of my body and belongings.

I was then told to enter the car and I recall it was a silver car, with five officers; three women and two men with no name tags. The entire luggage I had come with was put in the car boot. I was told they were taking me to the airport.
Soon after driving out of the centre, I was asked whether I could find my way to Uganda if I was dropped in Kenya. I replied in the affirmative. Many questions about my family, the number of kids I had, who pays their fees, and others, were asked. And they kept laughing at all my answers.

When the questioning stopped, the male officer tightened my seat belt. I panicked and asked to be allowed to use the toilet, which they refused. They immediately folded my wrist and handcuffed me. When I asked why, they said they were doing their job.

A female officer on my left started hitting my ribs with her elbow and the man followed, hitting me in turns. I pleaded with the female officer in the front seat to stop the two from hitting me. When she looked behind, they stopped but when she looked away, the hitting continued. I felt a lot of pain and started crying.
The male officer then pulled my cuffed hand to his side and the woman did the same until the cuffs dug into my flesh and I started bleeding.

I pleaded with them, telling them not to kill me for the sake of my children since I was a single mother. The words seemed to infuriate them the more as the male officer twisted my leg. At that moment, I felt like it was broken and I wet my pants. I tried stretching the other leg that had not been twisted and I hit the driver's seat.

Torture begins
The female officer stopped the car, came out and violently pulled my hair while the man on my right held my fore head as the other woman was hitting me hard on the cheeks. After a while, they stopped and we moved on.
When we got to the airport, they got out of the car and started talking with one another at a distance.

In that moment, a black man passed by, pushing a trowel and I shouted out to him. He moved closer and asked why I was handcuffed. People started gathering and a police officer came and asked the same question. I said I didn't know. I don't know what the policeman told the officers because they immediately got me back into the car and drove away from the airport. They said they were taking me to use the toilet.

We drove some distance and entered a place which looked like a garage but inside were many people dressed in white and blue uniform marked on G4S. I was taken to the toilet handcuffed and the female officer rolled toilet paper to pad me in case I wet myself again.
From there, they said they were taking me back to the detention centre. But along the way, they removed the cuffs and told me I have another chance to apply for resident status in the UK.
When we got back to the detention centre, the officer on duty, who was a black man, asked why I had been brought back. He told my tormentors that he could not allow me in the centre with the wounds; I was bleeding by now. He then ordered a white lady to establish the source of my injuries. The lady ordered for a medical form to be filled, pictures of my wounds taken before I was allowed back in detention.
Days passed and as Easter holidays approached, I was taken to a room to pick a dress. I found six people there, including the pastor of the church in the detention called Pastor Ronney . My clothes had been put in a polythene bag but Pastor Ronney offered to get me a new bag. When he brought it, I was asked to pack hurriedly and match out.
In the corridor, the men undressed me forcefully. I remember the male officer was called Davestone and a woman, Kelly. As I moved out naked, two men held my hand backwards and other two held my legs one each and spread them wide. Another man holding a big camera started filming my private parts.

Kelly was directing the cameraman how to do it. Meanwhile, the pastor was shouting: "Stop it, stop it". As I was crying, I saw him crying as well. I don't know if what they did to me that day will ever get off my mind.

I was later thrown in a small room and I heard them say: "She is in King Fisher". I spent a whole night while naked. The next morning, another officer called Carol told me: "Hellen, they have mistaken you for another person."

When she left, the black man who had received me after the airport saga came and said: "My sister, no matter what, home is best".

I heard on the loud speaker: "Hellen Ahimbisibwe social visit".
When the door was opened, I saw some people, among them a black woman who called out my name.

" I am Peggy Layoo, your social visitor. I am a solicitor and you don't have to pay me any money. I have come to take your case for free," she said. I was taken to a room where she looked at my wounds as she took notes. She promised to send a doctor to look at them but the latter was denied access to my room.
The next day, I was taken to a room with big cameras by a woman who ordered me to say the following words. "I thank the UK immigrations for allowing me to stay in this country and educating my children, and I kindly beg you not to mess my passport." I obeyed.

From there, I was taken to another room where I met two white women and men, who said they were the ones taking me back to Uganda. They gave me a tablet, had my luggage put in a car and drove me out of the centre.

Deported
These four were friendly and kind, they gave me a phone in the car to say bye to my friends in the UK. I was driven around for some time until departure time. We were the last to board the Virgin Airline plane. I was taken on the plane through the back door. When we got to Kenya, two of the officers went away and the other two told me we were going to change the plane.

I saw they had diplomatic passports. When we reached Entebbe Airport, they gave my passport to the immigration officers and told me to sit and wait. They then disappeared.

After some time, a Ugandan officer asked me what I was doing. I explained to them that I was brought from the UK and he took me to an office where I filled a form. He gave me my passport and told me to go. But my luggage had stayed in Nairobi so I stayed at the airport until evening when I got it and headed home.
When I got home, I found my mother had sold my house and two plots. Since 2011 when I returned, I have been going to police over the case until now. I was told they have to investigate what I was doing in London and whether I had any criminal record. From Kibuli, I was taken to Interpol were I met a man called Namanya who said mine was not an Interpol case.

According to The London Evening Post of April 29, 2001, Ms Peggy Layoo a solicitor from Cardinal Solicitors is quoted saying: "The uses of excessive force are well and documented by the medical personnel at the Immigration Removal Centre but redress remedies have been lacking because quite often, a detainee is removed prematurely to avoid embarrassing the government."
When the Saturday Monitor contacted Ms Peggy, she admitted knowing Hellen's case but said she was very busy and promised to get back to us next week.

ABOUT THE CENTRE
Location: Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre is an immigration detention centre at Milton Ernest in the Borough of Bedford in Bedfordshire. Capacity. It opened on November 19, 2001 and was built to hold up to 900 people, making it the largest immigration detention centre in Europe at the time.
Controversies. Since opening in 2001, the centre has been dogged by controversy. In February 2002, it was gutted by a fire, reopening in September 2003.
Strikes: Throughout its operational period, a number of hunger strikes and riots have occurred there. On January 11, 2011, the UK High Court ruled that the continued detention of the children of failed asylum seekers at Yarl's Wood is unlawful.

Other cases of torture at the centre

Cases of torture at the detention centre are well documented. According a September 15, 2013 article in The Observer, a UK newspaper, a former detainee at the immigration removal centre alleged that cases of inappropriate sexual contact between inmates and staff are ongoing.

The 46-year-old Nigerian woman claimed to have witnessed guards touching women inappropriately, and allege that guards gave detainees the impression they could help with immigration cases in return for sexual contact. Serco, a private-sector company that runs the centre, has denied the allegations.

A woman from Lesotho, who was last inside Yarl's Wood in October 2009, also told the newspaper that she witnessed guards entering rooms where a woman was alone. "I used to see how the guards would sneak into the detainees' rooms and sleep with them, flirt with them. I see the guards touching the detainee – sometimes they forget where they are."

Another woman, 26, who left Yarl's Wood in July this year also alleges that she saw staff touching female detainees inappropriately. "A man touches their bums and he touches people who don't know much English. It's been going on for a long time," she said.

A Serco statement said: "It is sometimes necessary for officers to enter rooms at night in the course of safeguarding. Serco's policy is that a male officer must not enter a female's room alone." It also said that corridors leading to detainees' rooms were monitored by CCTV.
Agencies

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