guard talks about toxic and racist culture at G4S Gatwick Immigration Referral Center | Immigration and asylum

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A whistleblower guard who worked at the controversial Brook House Immigration Detention Center, said during a public inquiry into abuse there that staff had radicalized to become racist because of a toxic culture.

The public inquiry was launched after a BBC Panorama program in September 2017 used undercover filming to expose a culture of abuse and humiliation of immigration detainees at the Home Office’s removal center near of Gatwick, run by contractor G4S.

Owen Syred, who has worked at the center for more than a decade, both as a police custody officer and as a social worker, told the inquest on Tuesday that he shared his concerns about racism, violence, the lack of skills to deal with vulnerable people with complex issues, and an us and them culture between staff and inmates.

He described an officer whose attitude changed after he started working at the center. At first he was polite and got along with everyone, but then grew to be a different person, Syred said. Some staff have been conditioned, almost as radicalized into stereotypical nationalities, he said. He added that some of the staff became racist after working at Brook House or, if they were already racist, became even more so.

Syred told the inquest he saw former staff members posting on Facebook that they were members of far-right groups Britain First or Knights Templar. I think some of the staff have radicalized to be racist, he said.

One example of racism he cited was of an officer who said: I hate it all. No wonder I’m a racist. When a staff member was seen eating plantain chips, Syred said, another officer commented: These are chips for [N-word]. A third officer had said he didn’t care about being a racist, Syred told the inquest.

When Syred reported racist incidents in 2014, he was accused of being a weed and a snitch. He had notes stuck to his locker saying N-lover and weed.

He said investigative staff penalized him for caring about inmates and disparagingly called him a teddy bear. Once, after having lunch with inmates, he was asked: Why are you sitting with these animals?

Drug use and smuggling were rife, and Syred said he believed certain agents may have been involved. He said that an inmate offered him 25,000 people to collect drugs from a restaurant in a nearby town and take them to the detention center.

In 2017, he said, he saw a popular and loud guard punch an inmate who had already been successfully subdued two or three times in the face. He said he was afraid to report the attack due to the previous campaign of intimidation and intimidation against him for being a weed.

The survey focuses on the period between April and August 2017 and examines the culture and attitudes of staff.

After the Panorama broadcast, 10 staff members were dismissed or resigned. Despite a police investigation, no prosecution was initiated, but two former detainees successfully argued for a full independent investigation. Serco took over the management of Brook House at G4S in May 2020.

Callum Tulley, a center guard, approached the BBC about his concerns and then filmed undercover at the center. He taped a G4S officer strangling an inmate, digging his fingers into the man’s neck and whispering in his ear: Don’t move, damn it, I’ll put you to sleep.

G4S said after the Panorama revelations that an internal investigation was underway into the conduct of staff members featured in the program. He said additional safeguards were in place to protect detainees, including expanding the use of body-worn cameras to defuse potentially violent situations, appointing whistleblower guards in each wing of the center to encourage staff raising concerns and increasing the frequency of random searches for drugs.

The investigation is continuing.

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