Open%20borders%20The%20case%20against%20immigration%20controls%20-%20Teresa%20Hayter

124 Open Borders
fences have been built parallel to the existing external fences. Razor wire has
been put along the top of the entire length of the external fence.
Campsfield is run by the private security company Group 4 Securitas Ltd.
Its guards are currently paid £4.50 an hour, work 12-hour day or night
shifts, and receive virtually no training except, for some of them, in the use
of control and restraint techniques and suicide awareness. The report on
Campsfield by Sir David Ramsbotham, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, carried
out on 13–15 October 1997, quoted detainees as saying that ‘staff were rude,
racist, used inappropriate language, and teased and intimidated them’. The
Campsfield Monitor has published numerous accounts of the racist behaviour
of Group 4 guards and reports by detainees that guards call them ‘fucking
niggers’, ‘lazy pussies’ and ‘black monkeys’, and tell them to ‘go back to your
own country if you do not like it here’. A man in his forties told the Campsfield
Monitor that he was dragged out of the shower naked in front of women and
men. Another detainee said Group 4 guards kicked him in the stomach ‘to see
if it really hurts’; he subsequently had a major operation.
Inside the high fences, detainees are not confined to their rooms, most of
which are shared. There is a loudspeaker system which appears to be
unceasing, with calls to the telephone, interviews and other announcements.
There are two classes a week in basic English and one volunteer-run art class
but no other educational facilities. There is a sports hall but outdoor access
is confined to small paved areas; detainees have never had access to the
centre’s football field, on the grounds, variously, that it is ‘waterlogged’ or,
as HM prison inspectors were told, that ‘building work ... was taking place’.
There are telephones, but no means of obtaining cash or phone cards to use
them, for example through paid work, except from friends and visitors.
Asylum Welcome, a charity set up in Oxford, arranges visits for as many
detainees as possible, but is hampered by Group 4’s refusal to provide lists of
names and therefore relies on information supplied by other detainees.
Visitors, especially former detainees, are sometimes unaccountably excluded
by Group 4. Medical facilities are inadequate. Group 4 put a contract for
medical services out to tender; none of the local GP practices was willing to
bid for it because they considered that an adequate service could not be
provided with the money on offer. Eventually Group 4 engaged part-time a
retired GP who also worked at Bullingdon prison. Detainees, sometimes sick
and traumatised and suffering the aftermath of torture, have difficulty in
gaining access to the doctor or nurses, and when they do they are likely to
have their problems ignored and merely to be prescribed paracetamol.
Referral to hospital or to specialists is sometimes so delayed that illnesses
which could have been treated at early stages become severe. The detainee
who was kicked in the stomach, after complaining of severe pain for a week,
eventually collapsed unconscious and had to be removed to hospital, where
he had a major operation which could have been averted. A young
Moroccan spent a year in Campsfield and lost most of his teeth. Some
detainees, including several who were considered to be at risk of suicide, have