Protesters outside Barnardo's head office on February 17
Protest held at Barnardo’s head office, Barkingside, over charity’s role at deportation centre
Alistair Kleebauer, Senior reporter
Friday, February 17, 2012
5:17 PM
A group called No Borders held a protest at the head office of Barnardo’s in Barkingside today over the charity’s involvement with a deportation centre
The group protested over the charity’s provision of welfare and social care services at the UK Border Agency’s Cedars centre in Crawley, west Sussex.
The secure facility houses “pre-departure accommodation” for families about to be deported from the UK.
The protest started at about 1pm and ended at about 4.15pm.
An online report from Indymedia said activists had occupied the head office in Tanners Lane.
A Barnardo’s spokesman said she was unable to go into details on negotiations with protesters.
The group handed out leaflets outside the building and held up a banner saying “Barnardo’s: ‘We believe in (locking up) children’”.
One leaflet said: “We call on Barnardo’s to stop its involvement in this horrendous practice and stop detaining children now.”
Later in the afternoon, police officers made a barrier across the front entrance of the office.
The Barnardo’s spokesman said: “Barnardo’s involvement at Cedars goes back to our core purpose - to help the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children in the UK.
“We provide welfare and social care services to asylum-seeking families in the last hours or days before they leave the country, at what we recognise is a stressful time for them.
“We are not involved in the operational aspects of the pre-departure accommodation - these are the responsibility of UKBA.”
View our gallery of photos from the protest by clicking on the link above.
And if you were at the scene, send any details and your views to newsdesk@ilfordrecorder.co.uk.
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5 comments
It is not punishment. It is detention prior to removal from the UK. If anybody is to blame it is such crackpot organisation as the ECHR that has no regard whatsoever for legal UK residents and their rights as taxpayers. It is they who prolong the process unnecessarily.
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Morris Hickey
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Why should children be punished for the actions of their parents. It's not the child's fault they are here illegally, the age of criminal responsibility in the U.K. is 10 and if a child under the age of 10 in the U.K. commits a serious criminal offence then they are not locked up. So why should children who have done nothing wrong be locked up. Also if the Home Office utilised their resources better by tagging parents then they would not abscond. The effect of detenion on a child is horrific and before commenting on such things one should read about the severe mental effect detention has on children in the long term, or would Pont Rough and Morris Hickey say to the children "tough luck, you will be detained and suffer the rest of your life but it was the right thing to do".
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jimmyk54321
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Why should children be punished for the actions of their parents. It's not the child's fault they are here illegally, the age of criminal responsibility in the U.K. is 10 and if a child under the age of 10 in the U.K. commits a serious criminal offence then they are not locked up. So why should children who have done nothing wrong be locked up. Also if the Home Office utilised their resources better by tagging parents then they would not abscond. The effect of detenion on a child is horrific and before commenting on such things one should read about the severe mental effect detention has on children in the long term, or would Pont Rough and Morris Hickey say to the children "tough luck, you will be detained and suffer the rest of your life but it was the right thing to do".
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jimmyk54321
Saturday, February 18, 2012
The "No Borders Group" are temporary visitors from cloud cuckoo land.
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Morris Hickey
Friday, February 17, 2012
If parents are in this country illegally and with their children they should be kept in custody until being deported within the law. They will have already broken the law which puts them within the kind of people who would abscond before their deportation.
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Pont Rouge
Friday, February 17, 2012