THERE IS “something rotten” in the mentality of Northern Ireland’s border control personnel, a Belfast-based solicitor has claimed.
Barbara Muldoon of the P Drinan law practice was speaking after a Nigerian client was awarded compensation of £20,000 for wrongful detention by immigration officers in Northern Ireland.
Eighteen-year-old Jamiu Omikunle, who is attending Greenwich University in London, was compensated for wrongful arrest and detention by immigration officers of the UK Boarder Agency in the North.
Omikunle had travelled from London to Belfast last June to attend a christening where he was to act as godfather when immigration police at Belfast’s Aldergrove Airport arrested him for allegedly being an illegal entrant.
After a night in Antrim Road police station, he was taken by ferry to Scotland where he was incarcerated for nine days in the notorious Dungavel detention centre.
Omikunle recounted: “I was conscious of the fact that only black people were being stopped. I was very uncomfortable about this. On the ferry there were lots of couples and families with children and all of them were looking at these black people in handcuffs. I have never felt as humiliated as I did on that journey.”
None of his family or friends were informed of his whereabouts, and it took Muldoon a day of phoning police stations to track him down. He was only released after his cousin, a London-based magistrate, put up a £500 surety.
Since then, Omikunle has had to be prescribed anti-depressants as a result of his ordeal.
One commentator, John Scott of the Howard League for Penal Reform in Scotland, has likened Dungavel to Guantanamo, and The Scotsman newspaper has called for its closure.
Commenting further on the case, Barbara Muldoon told Metro Éireann: “It was half-eight that evening when I located him in Dungavel. If somebody hadn’t have gone searching for him he would have been back in Nigeria. That’s the reality of the thing.
“I have received judgments in three almost identical cases in the last couple of months. In all three, the Home Office was alleging that people were illegal entrants and were arranging their expulsion. In all three cases, those involved were found not to be illegal entrants and were released.”
She added: “I know for a fact that people who are holding valid visas are being removed continuously, every weekend from Northern Ireland. They are not being given access to legal representation or given the opportunity to defend themselves in any way, and then they are back in Lagos or wherever. There is something rotten taking place at Northern Ireland’s ports and airports that demands questions at the highest level.”
A spokesperson for the UK Border Agency told Metro Éireann that it is involved in regular joint operations to detect illegal immigrants.
“In cases where foreign nationals have significantly changed their original intentions since they entered the UK, we have a legitimate interest in investigating whether or not the original permission to enter the UK was obtained by deception,” said the spokesperson.
“In the overwhelming majority of cases, the courts confirm our suspicions were well founded, and they are upheld. In a very small number of cases, the courts disagree with our decision, and this is a situation faced by all law enforcement agencies.”
