Oral evidence: Detention of Windrush generation, HC 1034Wednesday 16 May

Oral evidence, 16 May 2018.

Chair

Good afternoon and thank you very much indeed for joining us. We are the Joint Committee on Human Rights. Half of us are Members of the House of Lords, and half of us are Members of the House of Commons. We look into the issues of human rights. One of the most important human rights is the right not to be locked up, unless you have done something wrong, and to know what is happening to you. We have all seen and heard about you having not done anything wrong but being detained. We are very concerned about that, on the basis of it being a breach of your human rights. We are very grateful to you indeed for coming along to speak to this Committee, to explain what happened to you, so we can think about what went wrong and how we can make sure that it never happens again. We have Anthony and Paulette, who were detained, and Janet and Natalie, who helped to get them out. Thanks to both of you for coming along as well. Can we start with a question from Lord Woolf?

Lord Woolf

As my title suggests, I am a member of the House of Lords and not the House of Commons. My background is that I was a barrister who did cases involving immigration. I became a judge and eventually a senior judge. Then I got too old and I had to retire, so I have been retired for a little while now. I am very grateful for you being here to help us. We will all get help from you. Can I direct my first question not to Pierre but to the other four, who were directly involved in this and who are here for a different reason? Can you tell me when you first realised there might be any problem about your being in this country?

Anthony Bryan

I first came across this when I tried to visit my old mum, because she was not feeling too well.

Lord Woolf

Was she back in Jamaica?

Anthony Bryan

She was in Jamaica, yes. I applied for a passport, but I had to get my Jamaican passport first. Once I had done that, it all went to the immigration office. Then Capita started sending me letters, saying I was illegal, I did not have any status and they could not find any papers for me.

Lord Woolf

How long had you been living here then?

Anthony Bryan

I have been living here since 1965.

Lord Woolf

Your home was here. Had you any links with Jamaica apart from family links?

Anthony Bryan

After I came, I never left the country. I know people in Jamaica, but only over the phone. I have never spoken to them face to face.

Lord Woolf

When they started to suggest you might be here illegally, did you understand what powers they had?

Anthony Bryan

I thought they had all the powers, because they were telling me what they were doing and they were actually doing it to me, locking me up and taking away my privilege, so I thought they knew what they were doing.

Lord Woolf

Did you explain to them that you had been here a long time?

Anthony Bryan

I told them that, but to them I was lying. They did not believe me. I could not have been here in 1965. I could not have come on my brother’s passport. Those were the things they were telling me. Everything I was telling them, I had to prove.

Lord Woolf

Had you done anything that could indicate you might be difficult to trace if they did not detain you?

Anthony Bryan

I did not think it was difficult, because I had my national insurance number since I was 16, when I left school. I thought that all they had to do was look at my national insurance number and I would come up, but unfortunately I did not come up.

Lord Woolf

Besides suggestions being made to you, were any suggestions being made about you, Janet?

Janet McKay-Williams

No, not at all. It was all about him.

Lord Woolf

Your background was very similar to Anthony’s.

Janet McKay-Williams

They did not see me. They said that he could always Skype me if he left the country. His children, his grandchildren and I did not matter.

Lord Woolf

You had children and grandchildren.

Anthony Bryan

Yes.

Lord Woolf

You did the best you could to tell them about your background and they just would not accept it.

Anthony Bryan

We were “lying”.

Lord Woolf

Yes. Did they ever suggest that you should get help from somewhere or legal advice?

Janet McKay-Williams

No, they never did. He had his HMRC papers and letters of reference from different people.

Lord Woolf

Did you give them those?

Janet McKay-Williams

They have had everything.

Anthony Bryan

Everything I had, I gave to them.

Janet McKay-Williams

Then they turned it around to say, “You have a four-year gap where there is no evidence”. Obviously he could not work at that time, because he needed to show photo ID. That is where the gap came in, but they would not listen.

Lord Woolf

Turning to Paulette and Natalie for a moment, what was your involvement?

Natalie Barnes

It is a similar story.

Paulette Wilson

It is the same story.

Lord Woolf

It is the same sort of story. The circumstances are very similar.

Paulette Wilson

Yes.

Natalie Barnes

They are very similar. Anthony spoke about the gap. I was with my mum in the country for 39 years and I had my birth certificate, but they wanted me to prove it from when she left care to when she gave birth to me. It was a 12-year gap that they asked us to fill, and it was very hard to fill because my mum had been in a care home. They had destroyed the building, so the documents were very hard to come by. They kept telling us to go here, there and everywhere. Every time you would go there, you would hit a wall, because they would say, “We do not have it. Go over there”. Shifnal would say, “No, it is over here”. It was very hard to get that evidence for the first 12 years.

Lord Woolf

As I asked Anthony, did anybody give you legal advice?

Paulette Wilson

No, nobody gave me any advice at all. The first thing I got was a letter saying that I was an illegal immigrant. At the time, I did not understand it. It took me about a week before I could show my daughter that I had this letter, they were saying I did not belong here and I had six months to get out.

Lord Woolf

In your case, did you tell them about your connections with this country?

Natalie Barnes

Yes, we told them everything.

Paulette Wilson

Yes.

Natalie Barnes

They basically told us to get all the evidence. Like Anthony, we got national insurance contributions that she had made from when she was younger, doctors’ notes, letters from everybody. We also got a letter from a lady who picked her up from the airport. That was not good enough for them.

Lord Woolf

In either case, Anthony or Paulette, where were you going to run to if they thought you were going to hide somehow and disappear?

Paulette Wilson

Where could we have run to?

Natalie Barnes

She was going to the Home Office every two weeks.

Paulette Wilson

My family is here in England, so I was thinking. “Where would I run to?” The only person I would run to is my daughter and my family here in England. I would not have run away, because I had no passport to jump on a plane and go anywhere. How would I run away?

Natalie Barnes

She did not get in trouble or anything like that, so it was not a case of her ever trying to run. It was a case of them putting this wall up and saying, “We need this. We need it”. Everything they were telling us to get they were saying was not good enough. I did not know what to do next.

Lord Woolf

You did everything you could to satisfy them.

Natalie Barnes

I did.

Lord Woolf

Likewise, Janet and Anthony, you did everything you could to satisfy them.

Anthony Bryan

There was nothing else I could have done.

Lord Woolf

Could you give me an idea in both cases, if it is possible, how long before you were taken into detention you feared that you might be detained?

Paulette Wilson

I feared it for the first year. I feared that they were going to come and take me and put me in Jamaica. I was thinking, “But I don’t know anybody in Jamaica. I’ve not been back to Jamaica in 52 years”. I was also thinking, “They’re going to pick me up here and put me on a plane, and when I go there people are probably going to kill me”. I was thinking all sorts of things in my head.

Lord Woolf

How long was it in your case, Anthony?

Anthony Bryan

At first, I did not think they could do anything to me. I thought, “It was 1965”. I had been to primary school and secondary school here. Even when I was getting things from Capita, I was saying, “No, it’s a joke”. One of my friends said to me, “No, Capita will come and take you out of the country if you do not phone them or correspond with them”. I phoned them up. When I phoned them up, the geezer on the phone was a bit rude. He was saying, “You’re illegal”. I said, “Come for me then”, and I hung up the phone. I told my missus, and she said, “No, you shouldn’t have done that, because Capita will come for you”. A couple of days later, they did. I saw the van on the road, but I did not take any notice of it. I opened my door and went in. They were there for about five days on the same road. They did not come and knock for me. I just saw the van park up near my house. I just ignored it and went in. On Sunday, they came and knocked on the door, saying “police”. They were knocking on the window and the door at the same time, to try to confuse me. I do not know what they were trying to do. I asked, “What are you banging down my door for?” Anyway, I opened the door. They asked me my name. I said, “My name is Anthony Bryan”. They said they had to arrest me. I said, “What?” They said they had to arrest me. I said, “Who are you guys?” They said, “Immigration”. They said, “Get some clothes together, because you’re not coming back. You’re not staying here”. They were going to take me to detention. I said, “Could I make a phone call?” They said, “No”. They took me to the police station. I went to the police station. As I reached the police station, I said, “Could I make a phone call?” They said, “No”.

Lord Woolf

Who did you want to phone?

Anthony Bryan

I wanted to phone Janet. Anyway, after about six hours in the police station, I got a phone call. I told her that I was in the station where I was and they planned to bring me to wherever they would bring me. That was it. After I phoned her and told her I was there, she tried to come down to the police station. By the time she reached it, they had already moved me. They drove me six hours, all over the place. They tried to get me to the detention centre. They were all packed, so I went to three in the same night. They brought me to Oxford, and that is where they left me.

Lord Woolf

In both your cases, it was not only you, Anthony, and you, Paulette, who were telling them about your backgrounds. Janet could vouch for you.

Anthony Bryan

They would not listen to Janet. If they were not going to listen to me, they were not going to listen to Janet.

Lord Woolf

In your case, Paulette, you had your daughter, Natalie.

Paulette Wilson

They did not want to listen to her.

Natalie Barnes

They said they did not care that she had a daughter and a granddaughter. It was nothing to do with them.

Paulette Wilson

They did not care about my daughter or my granddaughter at the time.

Ms Karen Buck

I am a Member of Parliament in inner London. Going back a little, you talked about the evidence that you were trying to put together to show how long and how consistently you have been in this country. Did they give you precisely the evidence that they would be prepared to accept, or did they leave you to think about what kind of evidence you could put together? Presumably you spoke to friends and family about this, but did you seek any informal advice, such as from Citizens Advice? Where did you go, to get an idea of how you could make that case?

Natalie Barnes

They told us to go to Citizens Advice, but I did not think that Citizens Advice would deal with that. I went to a solicitor, and it was the solicitor who said to me, “Get this, get that, get this. We’ll see if we can do this or that”. The Home Office did not guide me. They just said they needed evidence.

Ms Karen Buck

They did not ask if you were on the electoral register or had GPs.

Natalie Barnes

No. I never heard anything like that.

Janet McKay-Williams

It was exactly the same with us.

Ms Karen Buck

You had no idea what kind of information you could put together that would help make your case.

Anthony Bryan

The only time I knew what they wanted was when I saw the Jamaican high commissioner. He was telling me what I needed to get, and I was saying that I did not have it. It was just a nightmare.

Chair

When did you see the Jamaican high commissioner?

Anthony Bryan

It was when the 12 of them came over.

Natalie Barnes

It was a couple of days before we went to Downing Street.

Anthony Bryan

Yes.

Chair

I see, so it was way after, when it was a public debate. At that point, you realised what you should have been getting, but they had not told you before.

Anthony Bryan

Yes.

Chair

That was a bit late in the day, was it not?

Anthony Bryan

Yes. I had already been locked up by then.

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

I am a Member of the House of Lords. I would like to follow on from what Karen was saying to you and what we heard about the high commissioners. It was during the Commonwealth meeting that they came over. Were you able at any time to contact the high commissioner about your situation, or did you think about doing that?

Anthony Bryan

To be honest, I never thought about doing it.

Janet McKay-Williams

We never actually did it. Once the media got in touch, the high commission contacted us. They told us that we were allowed to come there and people did not know about using them. We did not know until then. We did not know anything.

Natalie Barnes

Basically, we found that out after the fact.

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

That was only a couple of weeks ago, when the Commonwealth had its meeting here.

Natalie Barnes

Yes.

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

Anthony, you talked about how many days the van was outside. How did you know that was an immigration van? Do they have it on the side of their vans?

Anthony Bryan

Yes, it is all printed. It is like a plumber’s van with everything on it.

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

It had “immigration” on it.

Anthony Bryan

Yes, I knew it was them.

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

Janet, you were not at home when they came for Anthony.

Janet McKay-Williams

I had just left to go to work that day.

Anthony Bryan

She had just left to go to work, because it was about 9 am that they came for me. She must have left about 8.30 am.

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

They were obviously watching the house to see when you left, so that there was an opportunity for them to come and take Anthony away.

Janet McKay-Williams

Most likely, yes.

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

Did other members of your family get involved in helping to get the information that you needed for immigration?

Anthony Bryan

My son was rallying around like a mad person, going here, there and everywhere, getting phone calls, coming back inside.

Janet McKay-Williams

We still did not get the information we needed.

Anthony Bryan

I was mad, because what we were getting was not helping me, as I was still locked up.

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

What do you think the reaction would be if you were from, say, Canada, New Zealand and Australia?

Anthony Bryan

I hate to say it, but I do not think I would have this problem.

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

Why?

Anthony Bryan

I would be from Canada or those other places. I would not be from Jamaica.

Janet McKay-Williams

It is because of the colour of your skin.

Anthony Bryan

I did not want to say that. I am from Jamaica.

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

It is obvious. You see race as playing a big part.

Anthony Bryan

In the Home Office, yes.

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

I know you said you had phone calls, but did the Home Office at any time send you a letter or anything setting out exactly why it felt you were an illegal immigrant?

Janet McKay-Williams

No. They literally said, “You have no right to remain. You have not given us enough documentation”. That was after you had been arrested.

Anthony Bryan

It was before and after.

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

What about you, Paulette? Did they travel to your home?

Paulette Wilson

No.

Natalie Barnes

She was visiting Solihull.

Paulette Wilson

I was taken from Solihull. They never came to my home or took me from my home.

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

What is in Solihull?

Paulette Wilson

The Home Office in Birmingham.

Natalie Barnes

The Home Office reporting centre.

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

You went there first.

Natalie Barnes

She was going there every two weeks.

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

They decided to detain you while you were there.

Paulette Wilson

They detained me twice.

Natalie Barnes

The first time was on 9 August, but they only kept her for three hours.

Paulette Wilson

Then they let me go. When I went back on 18 October, they detained me and took me to Yarl’s Wood.

Natalie Barnes

She said to them on the day she was in there that she had everything she needed and she would be paying the fee the following Wednesday, but they still detained her.

Paulette Wilson

They said it was not enough.

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

I am sorry. You were paying a fee. What fee were you paying?

Natalie Barnes

They said we had to fill in an NTL, a “no time limit”.

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

Was there a cost to that?

Natalie Barnes

Yes, it was something like £229 or £239.

Anthony Bryan

It was £239.

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

That is what I am trying to understand.

Natalie Barnes

It was never about the money, by the way. It was just about getting evidence. At that time, I felt like I had got all the evidence that they needed. My mum had her solicitor and her caseworker at the RMC, where she was going to get the help. There was a lady in there named Heather, who had adopted a little girl who had been in the same care home as my mum. She was able to get the information that we needed for my mum from that care home and knew where to go to get it. She got that for us. That is why we then said, “We have everything now and she will be able to pay that fee next Wednesday”, but they still detained her that day when she said that.

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

Anthony, how long were you detained for?

Anthony Bryan

At first, I was detained for three weeks. The second time, I was detained for two weeks, so it was five weeks in all.

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

Paulette, how long were you detained for the second time?

Paulette Wilson

The second time, I was detained for a week. I was in Yarl’s Wood for six days and on the sixth day they took me to Heathrow Airport. I was supposed to be going to see the Jamaican high commissioner, but I ended up at Heathrow Airport, and I had the feeling that I was going to be put on the plane the next day.

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

What stopped that from happening?

Natalie Barnes

I went to the news. I brought it to the media, and I told my mum on the phone. I could hear a clicking sound, and I was angry at the time, so I said, “I know you’re listening to me and I hope tomorrow you’ll be watching the news at 11.30, because I’ve had enough of this and what you’re doing to my family”. They let my mum go the next day at 11.15.

Janet McKay-Williams

Saying that, when he was locked up the first time, they had him under someone else’s name. It was a mistake.

Anthony Bryan

I had a big gun and they did not want to let me out, because I was terrorising the area they arrested me in.

Janet McKay-Williams

When I went to visit him with his son, they brought someone else down to see us instead of him. It was not until someone who was there with him read his paperwork and said, “This isn’t you. You’ve never been a criminal”.

Anthony Bryan

I was upset. They locked me up. I was in jail. They gave me this form with five or six letters about me. They gave me a locker. I just put it in the cupboard. I met this guy in here and he said, “What are you in for?” I was telling him. He did not believe me, funnily enough, so I said, “Read this”. I gave him what immigration had given me. He said, “I thought you hadn’t been in trouble before”. I said, “No, I haven’t been in trouble”. It had “Anthony Roberts”, “Anthony Williams”, “Anthony” everything on it but me. It had everyone else’s name apart from mine.

Janet McKay-Williams

He gave them back that paperwork.

Anthony Bryan

When I gave them back the paperwork, it was the Thursday.

Janet McKay-Williams

I had to fax some details to them.

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

Usually, when people have some documents of yours, the first thing they want to do is check your name and your date of birth to make sure they correspond. Obviously none of that was done.

Janet McKay-Williams

No, not at all. Chair No, not once you get in the van.

Janet McKay-Williams

It was the centre where it was not checked.

Chair

It was the centre as well.

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

How far away was it? Was it easy for you to travel to visit?

Anthony Bryan

It was 160-odd miles from where I live.

Janet McKay-Williams

I could only visit him twice, and the second time I only visited him on that day because it was over two weeks. Luckily enough, they released him the day I got there. It was good, but he could not have visitors. It was too far.

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

Was the distance the same for you, Paulette? What was the distance from where they had taken you to where your daughter is?

Paulette Wilson

It was in Bedfordshire.

Natalie Barnes

It was in Bedfordshire. It was in Wolverhampton first.

Paulette Wilson

It was really far from Birmingham to Bedfordshire. You are in this dark van. It was night anyway. It was far. It took hours to get there.

Natalie Barnes

You said that when you looked out of the windows all you could see was—

Paulette Wilson

Trees. I never saw any houses or the motorway. Do you know what I mean? It was just trees.

Anthony Bryan

You are not a criminal, yet they nick you and bring you 160-odd miles from your house. Now, what is that all about?

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

At the end of all this, have you thought about taking any legal action against the Home Office, the detention centre and that sort of thing?

Anthony Bryan

Yes, most definitely.

Natalie Barnes

Yes, 100%.

Paulette Wilson

You cannot keep treating people like this.

Natalie Barnes

It is not right. Everyone has human rights, and how they treated her is not right. I have never believed that, as a British person, I would see someone treat somebody like that. It is absolutely wrong.

Baroness Hamwee

I am in the House of Lords. I am a solicitor by background, but that does not mean that I think our system should require lawyers to be involved all the time. You should not have had to take legal advice. My question, rather like Karen’s, was to ask whether in the early period, when they were first asking for documentation and so on, either of you were advised to take legal advice. Natalie, it was suggested you went to the citizens advice bureau, but was that ever suggested?

Janet McKay-Williams

No. We were told we were not entitled to legal aid. For any immigration case, no legal aid is allowed.

Natalie Barnes

Because they had no public funding and were not able to work, they were saying that they were not allowed legal aid anyway.

Chair

Who was saying that?

Natalie Barnes

The system was saying that. The RMC was telling us that maybe, because she is not allowed to work, she would not be entitled to legal aid.

Fiona Bruce

Good afternoon. I am a Member of the House of Commons. I am also a solicitor. Thank you for your bravery in coming today. We appreciate it very much. We know it would not necessarily have been easy to come, but we appreciate it. Natalie, you said earlier that your mother never got into trouble. Can we take it from that that she had never been in trouble with the law before? You do not have to answer it if you do not want to.

Natalie Barnes

When she was younger she probably got into a bit of trouble, but nothing drastic.

Fiona Bruce

She had never been arrested or detained in such a way.

Paulette Wilson

I had when I was younger. I was in my teens.

Natalie Barnes

It was nothing drastic. Yes, she got into a bit of trouble, but if that was the case why did they not see she was a Jamaican illegal immigrant then and send her back?

Fiona Bruce

It was many decades before.

Natalie Barnes

It was way before my time.

Fiona Bruce

It was never mentioned in this connection.

Natalie Barnes

No. It happened when she was in care, but nothing drastic.

Fiona Bruce

Anthony, was your situation similar, in that there was nothing that you feel could have linked you to being arrested from anything you had done previously?

Anthony Bryan

No.

Fiona Bruce

You had never been arrested or detained.

Janet McKay-Williams

Everything that happened was in the paperwork: any trouble he got into as a child or whatever. Everything was there. They wrote, “Even though you are of good character and have never been in trouble, it does not give you the right to remain”.

Anthony Bryan

I have the letter stating that.

Fiona Bruce

Can I pick up on something we have been told about your situation, Paulette? We have been told that you lost your flat and your disability benefit payments were stopped. Was this directly due to this inquiry into your circumstances?

Paulette Wilson

When I first got the letter saying that I was an illegal immigrant, I got a letter from the Department for Work and Pensions saying that I was not entitled to any benefits or healthcare. That was it. I was not entitled to anything at all.

Fiona Bruce

What was the impact on your life?

Paulette Wilson

I had my daughter.

Fiona Bruce

You went to live with your daughter.

Paulette Wilson

Yes. My daughter was the one who took care of me in all that I have been going through.

Fiona Bruce

Can I ask for the record who your landlord was?

Natalie Barnes

She was renting a room at the time. It was not her own property.

Fiona Bruce

Was it from a private landlord?

Natalie Barnes

Yes. She was there for a bit afterwards, but we decided that it was a waste of money. She might as well come and stay with me. I volunteered for my council at the time and I had a word with them. It was said that, because she was not getting any income or anything, it would not come back on me. It was a good thing, or not a good thing, but because she was not getting any money she could stay with me. She was not paying rent or anything like that to anyone.

Alex Burghart

Good afternoon, everyone. I am an MP in Essex. Thank you very much for everything you have told us so far. One thing that has concerned us as a Committee is the fact that you were essentially asked to prove that you should not be locked up, which is completely the wrong way round, as we would see it. When the authorities wrote to you to say that they believed you were an illegal immigrant, how did they set out their case? Did they just say, “We think you’re an illegal immigrant, Paulette, so you’re not entitled to anything and these are the consequences”? Did they give you any explanation?

Paulette Wilson

No, they did not.

Natalie Barnes

All the letters kept saying was, “You are liable to be detained”. It was on every single letter. Even when she came out of the detention centre, she was getting the letters saying that she was liable to be detained. She still had to go to the Home Office after she had come out of detention.

Alex Burghart

Was that the same for you, Anthony?

Anthony Bryan

Yes, definitely.

Alex Burghart

At no point did they say to you, “It’s because we don’t have any record of you being here. It’s because you do not have a passport”. It was an open and shut case.

Janet McKay-Williams

“We have refused your application. You have no right to remain in Britain and you need to leave”.

Alex Burghart

It did not explain why the application was refused.

Janet McKay-Williams

They just said there was not enough evidence. That is all they kept saying.

Anthony Bryan

There was not enough status.

Natalie Barnes

“When did you come into the country? Prove it from then until now”.

Anthony Bryan

They asked for all these payment receipts: Sky or gas bill, four of them for the year. I do not have last week’s receipts. Who is going to keep those things?

Natalie Barnes

I did not understand, because I watch these shows on the airports and that, and the Home Office is always there. I was saying to my mum, “I don’t understand why they’re saying that you’re an illegal immigrant. Can’t they look into their system and see when you came here, what date you came here?” because the Home Office stamps your passport when you come. I did not understand it.

Anthony Bryan

I did not understand it.

Alex Burghart

It seems very strange. What you said earlier, Anthony, was a question I asked the Home Office the other day about people who are in this situation, who have been here for a long time and have national insurance numbers and identities going back decades. It ought to all be on a government system.

Anthony Bryan

It should have been somewhere.

Alex Burghart

Yes, absolutely. When you first arrived at the detention centre, what process were you put through? Were you given any advice? Did anyone read you your rights?

Anthony Bryan

No. When you reach there, they process you. They have a wing for all the new people who came in that day or that week. Then, after 24 hours, you go to a different wing, because there are other people coming in behind you. They probably keep you for two weeks or three weeks. It depends on what they want to do. You do not have a say in it.

Alex Burghart

Are you given contact with the outside world?

Anthony Bryan

They give you a phone and those kinds of things, so you can phone the family, but it was not good enough.

Alex Burghart

Was that the same for you, Paulette?

Paulette Wilson

Yes, it was the same.

Natalie Barnes

It was exactly the same.

Alex Burghart

Nobody told you what your rights were.

Paulette Wilson

No, there was nothing at all.

Anthony Bryan

We could not ask what rights we had, because they were blankly telling us that we did not have any rights. We did not have any status and we did not have any right to stay in the country.

Natalie Barnes

That is why you think, “It’s the end. Now they’ve been detained, they’re going to be sent back to Jamaica”. I know that Janet and I were thinking the same thing.

Anthony Bryan

They had tickets for me, so there was no reason for me to think I was not going. To be honest, I thought I was going. I phoned the missus and said, “Listen, it looks like you’re going to see me in Jamaica”. That is what I told her. To be honest, I was broken. I was resigned, because I could not fight any more. I gave up, because six weeks before that I had buried my son, and then all of a sudden I was in this lock-up and I had not done anything. I was upset, so I signed the paper and said, “Get me out of here”. I phoned up my missus and told her. My son kept phoning me, saying, “Are you mad? What are you doing?” It was hard.

Chair

Our deepest sympathies to you for the loss of your son. Could we ask you something about how they were with you? Paulette and Anthony, you were trying to explain to them that you were not illegal immigrants. Janet and Natalie, you were trying to explain to them that they had got it wrong. How were they with you? Were they interested in the information you were putting forward? Were they asking your opinion or trying to hold you at bay? What were they like with you? Were they polite? Were they courteous? Were they professional?

Natalie Barnes

I do not think they were polite, courteous or professional. I have a mouth on me; do not get me wrong. I have. When it came to my mum, I was very angry and I was trying to say to them, “Listen, you’re doing the wrong thing. She was here before the law kicked in. It did not kick in until 1973. My mum has been here since 1968”. Basically, a guy swore at me. I swore back at him. I said to him, “Can you prove to me that you are English right now? Prove it. Take something out of your pocket to prove to me that you are British. How do I know that you’re British and not from a different country?” He swore at me and then I got banned from the Home Office. They banned me from there, because they said that I was causing a bit of a disturbance when I was going there, because I was trying to fight for my mum.

Chair

What about you, Janet?

Janet McKay-Williams

I had no personal dealings with the Home Office. It was all through the solicitor. They got in touch with her all the time.

Baroness Hamwee

You mentioned the stamping of the passport at Heathrow. Which passport was this?

Natalie Barnes

It was the one she came in on.

Baroness Hamwee

It was a Jamaican passport. I just wanted to get that clear.

Lord Woolf

There was a lot of publicity about people with backgrounds like yours in the media recently. Has anybody been to see you since that happened to apologise to you for what occurred, Anthony?

Anthony Bryan

Do you mean immigration?

Lord Woolf

Yes.

Anthony Bryan

No. I have not heard anything from them.

Lord Woolf

What about you, Paulette?

Paulette Wilson

I have heard nothing at all.

Natalie Barnes

We were all in Parliament two weeks ago. That upset me. I went home and cried, because it made my mum feel really bad that they only said, “We are sorry, Paulette Wilson”. I broke down.

Lord Woolf

Who said that?

Natalie Barnes

It was Caroline Nokes. I broke down in Parliament because of that.

Lord Woolf

This was in Parliament.

Natalie Barnes

This was two weeks ago in the Committee room.

Anthony Bryan

I did not take any notice of that, because it was a bit hollow to me. She probably meant well, but where I am coming from that was not good enough for me.

Chair

That was because you came here, was it?

Anthony Bryan

Yes.

Natalie Barnes

There was Anthony there. There was Sarah there. Elwaldo was there. Sylvester was there.

Paulette Wilson

They were all there.

Natalie Barnes

They only said Paulette’s name and I broke down in tears. I thought, “How dare they do that? How is that going to make my mum feel or look now?”

Chair

Can I ask you something about detention, particularly you Anthony, because you have talked about the detention, but also Paulette? I am going to describe to you what the official rules are about what should happen and what the regime should be like in detention. I would like you to tell the Committee whether that is what it was like when you were in detention or whether it was different. The rules, which are the detention centre rules 2001, say that there must be a relaxed regime with as much freedom of movement and association as possible; that you should be assisted to make the most productive use of your time, while respecting in particular your dignity and the right to your individual expression. Is that what it was like in the detention centres?

Anthony Bryan

To be honest, no, it was not like that for me. I might have missed certain things in the vexation I was feeling, but no. In the second one, which was Oxford, the people who locked me up were nice. I did not really want to say it, but they were.

Janet McKay-Williams

You actually got what they said it was supposed to be like in Oxford.

Anthony Bryan

In Oxford, they were nice. The screws there were nice.

Janet McKay-Williams

Screws?

Anthony Bryan

Well, I call them screws.

Chair

I am sorry you were there to be experiencing their niceness. It would have been better if you had been indoors with Janet.

Anthony Bryan

Oxford was nice. The Verne is a different thing. That is a prison.

Chair

In what way?

Anthony Bryan

The difference was the wardens and the people there. They were not nice.

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

Paulette, what age were you when you travelled over?

Paulette Wilson

I was 10.

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

You were 10. You were on a Jamaican passport.

Paulette Wilson

It was a British blue passport. It was British then, when I came over.

Natalie Barnes

It was Jamaican.

Paulette Wilson

It was a Jamaican British passport.

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

Jamaica got its independence in 1962. After that, you would have had a Jamaican passport, whatever colour it was. I have another question. I am not sure how it was said, whether something was in the newspaper or how it was publicised, but back in 1985 or around that time, there was something for people like you to be naturalised. Did you know anything about that?

Paulette Wilson

I did not, because I did not watch a lot of TV in those days, so I did not really know about it.

Anthony Bryan

I saw it, but I thought it was not for me. I was here from 1965. I went to primary school and secondary school here. I did not think they were talking to me. That is how I thought.

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

What is your status now?

Anthony Bryan

Do you mean me, personally?

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

I mean both of you.

Anthony Bryan

I have my biometrics. That is it.

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

Do you have a British passport?

Anthony Bryan

No.

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

What is biometrics? What does that mean?

Anthony Bryan

Biometrics has your fingerprints, your eye colour.

Janet McKay-Williams

There is no time limit. You can stay in the country indefinitely.

Anthony Bryan

They put no time limit on it.

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

Will you be applying for a British passport now?

Anthony Bryan

Yes.

Natalie Barnes

I was hoping that they were going to get them today.

Anthony Bryan

I thought we would have got them already, to be honest.

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

How do you mean?

Anthony Bryan

We are British. They know that we are British. They are waiving all these things. Waive the rest of the things and give us our British passports.

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

Would you not have to put in an application form, send in your photos and all the rest of it?

Anthony Bryan

We are doing that now. My solicitor is on that. I am supposed to go there tomorrow morning to do all that.

Chair

One of the things that Lord Woolf alluded to was that, even under the Immigration Rules, you are not supposed to be detained unless there is reason to believe you would flit off somewhere else. You had a normal residence and you were in a normal place routinely. Could they have had any justification for thinking that you would have disappeared off somewhere else in the UK and hidden?

Anthony Bryan

I do not know how they got that idea, because I did not have any money, and you need money to travel and go anywhere, even by Oyster.

Janet McKay-Williams

He signed on. He never missed one signing on. If they said, “Come on this day”, he was there.

Anthony Bryan

I could not have run, because there was nowhere to run.

Chair

How near do you think you were to being put on the plane? Do you know how near you were?

Anthony Bryan

I got there on Monday, and on the Wednesday they told me that they had a ticket for me. I was sure I was going to go.

Janet McKay-Williams

He was literally at Oxford Airport.

Anthony Bryan

That was another torture. Why have the detention centre right in the airport, where you can see the planes landing and taking off? That was depressing for me, because I was wondering whether that was the plane I was going on. It was not nice.

Jeremy Lefroy

I am a Member of Parliament in Staffordshire. Thank you very much for coming today and sharing with us. I have only one question for Anthony and Paulette. Did you get the impression that, whatever evidence and papers you had given, it would not have been enough?

Anthony Bryan

In my case, because of my national insurance number and the work I had been doing—I was on record paying taxes—I thought that would be enough. That is what I thought, anyway.

Paulette Wilson

I thought the same thing, because I had been working since I was 15. I had a national insurance number that they gave me when I was 15 years old. I thought that would have been enough, but it turned out that it was not enough.

Anthony Bryan

I got mine when I left school.

Paulette Wilson

I did as well.

Anthony Bryan

You cannot forge these things. You have to get it when you leave school, so I have been using the same one from when I was 16 years old until now, at 60.

Jeremy Lefroy

Did they ask for any documents that it would have been impossible, even for any of us, to have produced?

Anthony Bryan

Most of the documents were impossible for me to get, because I do not keep documents. I suppose there were a few that you could get if you really went out there looking for them. I had to go and look for my school records.

Jeremy Lefroy

You were asked for your school records.

Anthony Bryan

Yes.

Jeremy Lefroy

I wonder how many of us here have our school records.

Anthony Bryan

I was lucky, because I went to the council, and fortunately it had me on its records for Northwold Primary School.

Jeremy Lefroy

They had that record, and even that was not enough.