Campaigners claim victory in bid to stop 50 deportations to Jamaica

Campaigners are claiming victory in their fight to stop the deportation of more than 50 people to Jamaica from the UK on Tuesday.

The detainees, who the Home Office says are foreign criminals and are being held at two centres near Heathrow Airport, were due to be flown to the Caribbean island on Tuesday morning.

Earlier on Monday, campaigners lost a High Court ruling but later a Court of Appeal judge, Lady Justice Simler, reached a different decision.

The charity Detention Action claimed the new ruling would affect 56 people but the Home Office said the figure was closer to 30 and has asked the judge to reconsider.

Detention Action argued some detainees at Colnbrooke and Harmondsworth centres still do not have a functioning mobile phone, after issues with a nearby O2 phone mast, and did not have adequate access to legal advice.

Lady Justice Simler ordered the Home Office not to remove anyone "unless satisfied (they) had access to a functioning, non-O2 SIM card on or before 3 February".

Activists also claim some of those facing deportation were as young as 13 when they moved to the UK.

Bella Sankey, director of Detention Action, said: "We are delighted with this landmark decision which is a victory for access to justice, fairness and the rule of law.

"On the basis of this order from our Court of Appeal we do not believe that anyone currently detained at the Heathrow detention centres can be removed on the flight. We understand that this will apply to at least 56 people."

A Home Office spokesperson said: "The planned charter flight to Jamaica is specifically for deporting foreign national offenders. Those detained for removal include people convicted of manslaughter, rape, violent crime and dealing Class-A drugs.

"We are urgently asking the judge to reconsider their ruling and it would be inappropriate to comment further whilst legal proceedings are ongoing."

More than 150 politicians and peers had written to the prime minister calling on him to stop the deportation.

Two of the young men who had been set to be deported were convicted of drugs offences as teenagers and say they have no link to Jamaica, having left the country at a young age.

Tajay Thompson, who was convicted of possessing Class A drugs with intent to supply as a 17-year-old, has been given a reprieve.

He served half of a 15-month sentence in 2015 and, now 23, he had told Sky News: "It's not like I'm a rapist or a murderer, I've made a mistake when I was 17 and it's now going to affect my whole life."

Mr Thompson was brought to the UK as a five-year-old and lives with his mother and younger brother in south London.

He has only been to Jamaica twice on holiday since and said: "I feel like I was born here. Jamaica is not my country."

His mother Carline Angus said she feared for her son's safety if he was deported.

She told Sky News: "Sending a person back to Jamaica to live is totally different from going on holiday.

"The minute you reach back home you are a deportee, your life is in jeopardy. You'd be lucky to survive six months there because you became an easy target. So there's no way he can survive. Tajay knows no one there."

Mr Thompson filed a separate legal challenge and is now able to remain in detention in the UK while his lawyers work to keep him here indefinitely.

Akiva Heaven, 22, who served around four years for a drugs offence and was released in May 2018, said: "I've done my sentence already, I've done my crime, done my time as they would say.

"Now, I'm getting a double punishment."

Mr Heaven said he fears for his life if he is forced to return to a place where he has no relatives and no memories.

Nottingham East Labour MP Nadia Whittome organised the letter to Boris Johnson and said deportations should be stopped until a report into the Windrush controversy is released.

She said: "The fact is that many of the individuals in question have lived in the UK since they were children and at least 41 British children are now at risk of losing their fathers through this charter flight.

"The government risks repeating the mistakes of the Windrush scandal unless it cancels this flight and others like it until the Windrush Lessons Learned Review has been published and its recommendations implemented."

Windrush campaigner and Labour MP David Lammy urged the government to reassure MPs that there were no British nationals on the flight.

He added: "People watching see the way that this government holds with such disrespect the contribution of West Indian, Caribbean and black people in this country. When, when will black lives matter again?"

The Windrush generation were named after the ship that brought migrants to the UK from the Caribbean in 1948.

Commonwealth citizens who arrived in the UK before 1973 were automatically granted indefinite leave to remain but many of them were not given any documents to confirm their status.

In recent years, some have been denied access to services, held in detention or removed, despite living legally in the country for decades.

Reacting to Ms Whittome's request last week, Boris Johnson said: "The people of this country will think it right to send back foreign national offenders."

Last year, 29 convicted criminals were deported to Jamaica on the first deportation flight since the Windrush scandal.

The Home Office previously said that under the UK Borders Act 2007, a deportation order must be made where a foreign national has been convicted of an offence and received a custodial sentence of 12 months or more.

Possible exceptions include where this would breach human rights or the UK's obligations under the Refugee Convention.