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22 November 2024

Reid It and Weep

Article published: Sunday, January 10th 2010

Three years ago this month lawyers representing the then Home Secretary John Reid admitted in court that children had been held in detention centres illegally.

The humiliating climbdown came as four test cases were about to hit the High Court where it was likely the judges would rule that the unaccompanied teenagers should not have been forced to live in prison-like conditions.

On January 26, 2007, the High Court ruled that the policy of holding children whose ‘appearance or demeanour’ suggested they could be over 18 was unlawful and Dr Reid’s briefs confirmed the Government ‘did not strike the right balance’.

So was Dr Reid chastened by the High Court drubbing. Apparently not, for the Airdrie and Shotts MP is now earning £50,000 year in consultancy fees from a company which makes its money from.. holding young children in detention.

The author and End Child Detention Now campaigner Clare Sambrook has revealed that the serving MP is earning the tidy sum working for G4S, the company that runs Tinsley House Removal Centre near Gatwick airport.

Just last year, ten-year-old asylym seeker Adeoti Ogunsola tried to strangle herself after being forcibly detained and returned to Tinsley House. Adeoti told the guards who saved her she would rather die in England than be returned to Nigeria and murdered.

Ms Sambrook said in her report: “For his new paymasters, Dr Reid has been hosting ‘government and security industry breakfast briefings’. While in the media he’s talking up the scary threats and looming crises to which his business partners offer lucrative solutions.”

She has also established that the business of holding children in detention has make a small fortune for the companies directors, including chief executive Nick Buckles who earns £1.4 million a year – or £3,835 a day.

Brendan Montague

SIGN THE PETITION

This article was first published 8 January 2010 on the-sauce.org and has been reprinted for free with the author’s permission.

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