The UK is detaining children in poor conditions at the border in France

HM Inspectorate of Prisons has published a report following an unannounced inspection of the short-term holding facilities at the France-UK borders that took place in November 2024. These facilities are in France but are run by the UK and are used to detain people while considering whether to admit, grant leave to enter or refuse entry to the UK.

There are five separate facilities and while the newly built holding areas at Dunkirk and Calais were described as “decent”, the facilities at Coquelles (within the Eurotunnel perimeter) had deteriorated since the previous inspection in November 2019. The facilities at Coquelles were described as “at times barely fit for purpose” where “exhausted detainees in a stuffy and smelly holding room without access to showers, who had already been held for over seven hours”.

Those being detained include children and the inspectorate noted that:

Critical safeguarding work varied in quality and efficiency and specialist Border Force officers were not always available or sufficiently knowledgeable. It was particularly worrying that Border Force could not locate safeguarding referrals of vulnerable detainees, including two children who were subsequently retrafficked.

The most common nationalities across all facilities were Romanian, Polish, Eritrean and Sudanese. Over the period April to September 2024, 3,778 people were held in detention in these facilities.

The priority concerns and key findings were:

Priority concerns

1. Safeguarding referrals were not always made when necessary to the Police aux Frontières (PAF) and there was no record of referrals for vulnerable detainees who were re-trafficked.
2. Data were not systematically collated or used to help improve outcomes. For example, there were no data on the number or outcomes of PAF safeguarding referrals or on the outcome of age assessments, and there was no analysis of the reasons for longer detentions.
3. There was weak governance of use of force by Border Force staff. 
4. The holding rooms in Coquelles Freight and Coquelles Tourist were in poor physical condition.
5. The longstanding problem of poor phone and radio signals undermined communication and use of professional interpretation and had, in one case, delayed a Border Force officer’s attempt to call a medical emergency.
   
   Key concerns
   
6. Border Force staff were not sufficiently familiar with Home Office guidance on age assessment: in every case we looked at, officers had failed to apply the correct age assessment test.
7. Responses to complaints were sometimes very slow, with one taking 10 months. Responses were generally helpful but did not always cover key issues that had been raised, including in one case a concern about discrimination.
8. Detainees were not routinely offered the use of mobile phones or a phone call to family or friends after their induction.

The inspectorate last reported on these facilities in 2019 when they wrote separate reports for each location. In total 50 recommendations were made. Five years later, ten of those have been achieved, six partially achieved and a huge 33 of the recommendations had not been achieved at all, no doubt leading to the unsatisfactory conditions and situations described in this report.

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