Brook House IRC
Brook House IRC is an immigration removal centre run by G4S. It is part of the 'Gatwick cluster' of immigration removal centres together with Tinsley House IRC and Cedars PDA.
Brook House was built by Global Solutions Ltd.(GSL). The company was acquired by G4S and the centre opened in 2009 under G4S' management.
- Ben Saunders became Director for G4S of the Gatwick cluster of immigration removal centres in 2012 (ongoing).
2013 forgery
In November 2013, High Court judge Mr Justice Mostyn said G4S guards at Brook House had forged documents. He asked prosecutors to consider charging them, saying they had "behaved disgracefully". G4S said two members of staff had been suspeneded. The case related to a man who was deported from the UK. Court documents showed that:
"The claimant's case is that the Secretary of State by her servants or agents caused confidential documents to be placed in his baggage prior to his removal. These confidential documents related to his failed asylum claim and to his participation in the activities of Organisation 1. These confidential documents came to the attention of government agents of Country A on his arrival at the airport of the capital. He was detained, taken to a distant place, and brutally tortured. The following day, 29 October 2010, by virtue of a bribe paid by his aunt to a colonel in the army, he was released since when he has been in hiding in Country A (although he has not been forced so deep underground that he has not been able to arrange through the British Embassy attendance at the United Nations building in order to participate in these proceedings by video link)."[1]
The judge said that the G4S guards (Tamara Burns, Marilyn Bennett and Matthew Newman) who packed the man's luggage prior to his deportation from Brook House had falsified the record regarding what documents they placed in his bags. Mr Justice Mostyn said in his judgement that:
"The conduct of the Secretary of State's agents in falsifying the room clearance certificate is corrupt and truly shocking. When agents of the state falsify documents it undermines, if not fatally, then certainly very seriously, the trust of the people in the operation of the rule of law. It makes no difference if, as here, the agents are private contractors to whom the Secretary of State has outsourced her powers. Corruption by state officials is insidious and corrosive and it is the duty of the authorities where it is found to root it out ruthlessly. In judicial review proceedings, where the evidence is almost invariably given on paper and not subject to cross examination (unlike this case), it is especially important that deterrent measures are taken where such conduct is exposed.
In this case I am satisfied that there is prima facie evidence of the offence of forgery and I direct that a copy of this judgment be sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions along with the relevant documents. Further, to make a false witness statement is a contempt of court. Proceedings for such contempt are a matter for the Attorney General, and I direct that this judgment and the relevant papers be sent to him also."
