Examination of Witnesses (Questions 200-219)
MR TOM
DAVIES AND
MR MICHAEL
PAYNE
TUESDAY 28 JANUARY 2003
200. But, if you are only there 24 hours, that
is very difficult, is it not?
(Mr Payne) Yes, but we are following the due processes
of law.
Miss Widdecombe
201. May I ask a supplementary question on that.
You have somebody who is fully established: he has a house, he
has a mortgage and he has a family. It seems to me that he is
extremely unlikely, though I suppose not impossible, that, with
that sort of setup, they are simply going to disappear and vanish
without trace. Therefore, I query very much why it was necessary
to do a 24 hour removal. I know that it is not your decision.
(Mr Payne) Absolutely.
202. But it does seem to me—and I have
raised this question with the minister and indeed it is to the
minister that I will probably have to put it more appropriately—that,
when you are trying to reach a target, you very often go for soft
targets rather than going for the more difficult cases and somebody
sitting in an established house with financial commitments and
a family is a very soft target.
(Mr Payne) The individual concerned said to my officers
that he did not object to going but that he really wanted time
to sort himself out, and the rest of the question I do not think
it is my prerogative to answer.
Chairman
203. You will send us details of that?
(Mr Payne) Yes, indeed.
204. And indeed any other such cases that have
caused you concern recently.
(Mr Payne) How many do you want?
Chairman: We can then bounce them off
the appropriate authorities.
Miss Widdecombe
205. Is that a very unusual case? Are you frequently
removing people who are seemingly securely established with houses
and families or are you more often not doing so?
(Mr Payne) I suppose that the definition of frequent
is three or more and the answer to that is, yes, frequently.
206. Frequently?
(Mr Payne) Yes.
Mrs Dean
207. Wackenhut expressed in evidence some of
the problems which lead to removals failing at the airport. Could
you tell us how you think removals on scheduled flights could
be co-ordinated more effectively.
(Mr Payne) The situation is that each and every airline
has a number of seats which are allocated to both removals and
inadmissible persons to this country. Those agreements have been
set with the relevant authority. The system at the moment does
not have any co-ordination between the removing authority, that
is to say the Immigration Service, and their partners. For example,
Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester, Heathrow and Gatwick might all
have a set number of people to go on a particular flight to a
particular country. There is no central co-ordination unit to
say, "That is full. You cannot do it. Why do you not put
him on the 3.15" or the 7.30 or something like that. We arrive
at the airport with the individual, arrive at the gate and discover
that there is an over-booking and the captain will not take more
than his allocated number. That frustrates the removal process.
208. What is that allocated number normally?
(Mr Davies) May I answer that. It is an International
Air Transport Association (IATA) agreed figure which is a variable
figure depending on the discretion of the airline and the routing,
but the general rule is one escorted removal and three unescorted
removals depending on the category of the unescorted, whether
they are inadmissibles, deportees, refusals or whatever. Some
airlines will not even carry any. If they are not Carrier Liability,
in other words if they are not responsible for bringing the person
into the country and they are being removed under the public expense
rules on an airline to a destination and it is not their responsibility,
they say they are not interested and that they do not want to
know.
Chairman
209. Even though the ticket has been paid for?
(Mr Davies) Absolutely, sir.
210. On what grounds do they not want to know?
(Mr Davies) A number of them do it effectively now
following the 11 September incidents in the United States on the
safety of the aircraft and the other paying passengers' perception
of their safety.
Mrs Dean
211. Are there some carriers which are more
strict on that rule than others?
(Mr Davies) Yes, undoubtedly. I think I intimated
to you at Harmondsworth that, if it were not for British Airways
and the support we get from British Airways, the number of scheduled
flight removals that we would achieve out of this country would
be virtually nil.
212. Could you tell us whether there are other
reasons why removal on scheduled flights fail. Are there sometimes
problems with mistakes that have been made by immigration staff?
(Mr Davies) In our experience, rarely. You must understand
that this is a two-tier approach. Michael has the responsibility
for presenting people being removed unaccompanied and he perhaps
would indicate to you the problems that they experience. We generally
get the people that they have failed to remove or who have been
refused by the aircraft and they are moved over to the special
needs category and then they are escorted. From our viewpoint,
with the escorted removals, the major reasons why the captains
refuse to fly or the removal is frustrated is because the detainee
actually becomes violent, screams, shouts and tries to attack
our officers and you just end up with something that looks particularly
unsavoury and the captain says, "No, thank you very much
indeed".
(Mr Payne) Certainly, I corroborate what Tom says
there. It is not just the violent or the refractory detainee that
causes the problem of being frustrated. Certainly, as I have alluded
to in the evidence, there are passengers who, once we have delivered
them to the aircraft and they become the responsibility of the
cabin crew, go to their seats and they just take all their clothes
off, run around and start screaming that they do not want to go
home and so on and so forth. That really does happen very regularly.
I have brought a case in point to the Committee for their investigation
if they want to take details of it, just a sample one.
Chairman
213. Did you say that you have such a case?
(Mr Payne) Yes.
214. If you would supply that along with any
other details.
(Mr Payne) Before I leave or now?
Chairman: Before you leave.
Mrs Dean
215. With British Airways, how often does that
happen? What percentage?
(Mr Payne) I cannot give it in percentage terms because
the numbers of people change week by week, but never a week goes
by when we do not have two or three.
216. Two or three a week who deliberately avoid
it?
(Mr Payne) Yes.
217. Can anything be done to prevent that?
(Mr Payne) It is difficult because our responsibility
ends at the aircraft gate and unless, as Tom has indicated, there
is an accompanied removal and it is not necessarily with Tom's
organisation, it could be another security company nominated by
the airline, and they frequently . . . I must be careful not to
say "frequently". There are occasions when they are
not sufficiently trained in handcuff routine or first-aid or whatever
and because the training of those individuals has not been taking
place, then the captain refuses to take them. There are so many
variations to reasons for not that we could compile a list.
218. Do all the people being removed have tickets
when they are taken to catch their flights?
(Mr Payne) Part of our responsibility includes obtaining
the tickets from the airline which have been booked in advance
by the authority.
219. And that always works?
(Mr Payne) It usually works, yes. To be fair, it does
usually work.
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