25 February 2025: EIN: Child Safeguarding Failures at Border Force Short-Term Holding Sites
HMI Prisons conducted an inspection of the UK’s five short-term holding facilities (STHFs) at the France-UK border during a visit in November 2024. The STHFs are located in Calais, Coquelles, and Dunkirk, and are managed on behalf of the Home Office by Care and Custody, a division of the Mitie Group. They are used by Border Force to detain travellers in French territory pending a decision to admit, grant leave to enter or refuse entry to the UK.
The inspection revealed a mixed picture of ongoing challenges and failures amid some improvements.
Inspectors identified nine key concerns, five of which were deemed priorities requiring immediate attention by leaders and managers. These included the failure to make necessary safeguarding referrals, the lack of systematic data collation to improve outcomes, weak governance of the use of force by Border Force staff, poor physical conditions at the Coquelles facilities, and longstanding problems with phone and radio signals that undermined communication and use of professional interpretation.
Read more: EIN, https://shorturl.at/VGC0N