Controversial immigration detention centre in Lincolnshire to close

Morton Hall, where several deaths have occurred in recent years, will revert to a prison

Morton Hall immigration removal centre in Swinderby, Lincolnshire, is to become a prison again next year. Photograph: Rui Vieira/PA

Diane Taylor-Thu 23 Jul 2020

A controversial immigration detention centre where several deaths have occurred in recent years is to close.

Morton Hall in Swinderby, Lincolnshire, will revert to being a prison next year, a function it performed between 1985 and 2011, when it held female inmates.

The detention centre, which can accommodate 392 people and is run by the prison service for the Home Office, is particularly unpopular because of its remote location and jail-like conditions.

Janahan Sivanathan, a Tamil refugee who is now a law student and who was detained at Morton Hall for five months, welcomed the news.

Janahan Sivanathan was held for five months at Morton Hall. Photograph: Janahan Sivanathan

“The fact that this place is closing is a huge thing,” he said. “I was there for almost five months in 2014 and was detained there again for five days in 2015. The treatment by the guards and the bullying I experienced there has had long-lasting effects on me.

“I went on hunger strike and self-harmed, burning myself with cigarettes while I was in there. The scars on my body remind me of that place every single day. The effects are never-ending.”

Sivanathan said that he hoped the Home Office’s six other immigration detention centres and two short-term holding centres would also close.

Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic the numbers of immigration detainees has fallen dramatically, from more than 1,200 at the beginning of 2020 to 368 in May.

Campaigners against immigration detention say this is proof that the UK does not need to use detention so widely when there are cheaper and more humane ways to monitor people in the community. The UK has one of the largest immigration detention systems in Europe, and is the only country in the region without a statutory time limit on length of detention.

An inspection report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons earlier this year found high levels of self-harm, violence and use of force at Morton Hall.

Emma Ginn, director of the charity Medical Justice, which works for health rights for immigration detainees, said: “We welcome the news of the ending of immigration detention at Morton Hall.

“For immigration detainees it has been a place of misery, self-harm and death. One Medical Justice client who was detained there described it as a ‘hell hole’. This follows a string of IRC [immigration removal centre] closures over the years, which has proved these IRCs were never needed in the first place.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “Following the decision by HM Prison Service, Morton Hall will return to its use as a prison in 2021.

“Those in detention at Morton Hall will be transferred to other immigration removal centres. This will be managed carefully with each individual assessed prior to their transfer.

“Most individuals at Morton Hall will move from the centre in the months ahead for removal flights, bail hearings or other immigration procedures, so the numbers will be reduced naturally in the runup to it returning to its use as a prison.”