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A MAN who was shot and tortured in Jamaica “will be dead within a month” if he is forcibly deported, his partner told the Star.
Christopher, 45, is one of 50 people due to be put on a charter flight next Tuesday — the second to the country since the Windrush scandal in 2018.
His long-term partner Margaret Holmes, an Irish national, told the Star that he fled Jamaica in 2001 from gang violence.
He suffers severe mental health issues stemming from childhood when he witnessed gang members break into his home, killing his father and brother, Ms Holmes said. He was tortured and shot by the same gang and his two remaining brothers were murdered after he left.
“If he is deported to Jamaica on February 11, I will tell you by March 11 he will be dead in Jamaica,” she added, “I know that. I know 100 per cent he will be killed.
“He is the surviving member of a family targeted by gangs. When they find out he went back they will kill him.”
Ms Holmes and Christopher have lived together for six years in south London with her 16-year-old son from another partner. He moved into her house in 2014 after completing a six-year jail term for blackmail.
On January 20 he was detained and taken to Harmondsworth removal centre on the basis that he had no legal right to remain in Britain and had committed a serious crime.
Ms Holmes argues that he is a vulnerable person who is self-harming and suicidal, but this has not been taken into account by the Home Office.
“I’m waiting for a phone call. Every night I’m waiting for a phone call to hear that he’s done something,” she said.
“From here it’s very hard. I had to go down to my GP and I have to take a week off work for stress, I’m losing weight rapidly. It’s not good for me at the moment.”
Christopher is not the only detainee on board next week’s flight who fears for his life.
Rupert, 32, told the Star that he was also forced to flee Jamaica from gangs who were “killing off” members of his family.
He escaped to Britain with his mother and siblings at the age of 13, and has not returned to the island since.
Rupert was granted indefinite leave to remain in 2009, which was later revoked after he was convicted for assault.
The Home Office claims both men are “serious criminals” and have no legal right to stay in Britain.
Calling from Brook House detention centre, Rupert told the Star he understood that what he did was wrong but that he had “paid for his crime.”
“They are treating me like a savage, how can you just ship someone off for one mistake, is that how someone’s life is decided?” he asked.
Rupert lives in London with his partner of 10 years, their three biological children and one step-daughter.
He pointed out that someone born in Britain “would never be treated this way.”
“Just because the colour of our skin might be different, or our heritage might be different, or because we’re not from here, doesn’t mean that we’re not human as well. People deserve chances.”
Campaigners and politicians are demanding the government cancel next week’s charter flight, saying it amounts to a “triple punishment.”
Shadow immigration secretary Bell Ribeiro-Addy told the Morning Star: “Deportees are facing a triple punishment that would not be applied to their white peers: sentencing, detention and deportation.”
Responding to the possible risk to detainees’ lives she said: “Again, it looks like the government are failing to fully consider these people’s right to a family life.
“Now the Home Office are not even conducting a thorough risk assessment to ensure no-one is wrongfully deported again.”
It wouldn’t be the first time that forced flights to Jamaica — which has one of the highest per capita murder rates in the world — have put deportees in danger. At least five people returned between March 2018 and May 2019 have subsequently been murdered.
Pressure mounted on the government to cancel the flight yesterday after a leaked copy of the Windrush review was released.
The review states that all deportations of foreign nationals who came to Britain as children should end. This would include Rupert, who came to the country as a 13-year-old.
It also suggests that: “Alternatively, deportation should only be considered in the most severe cases.”
Bail for Immigration Detainees (BiD), a group that campaigns to end migrant detention, argued that the leaked review — and the delaying of its official publication — shows the government has learnt nothing from the Windrush scandal.
“Rather than publish the report and consider the recommendations the government continues to evade scrutiny and push ahead with charter flights to commonwealth countries,” BiD Research and Policy Co-ordinator Rudy Schulkind said.
“That is not the course of action of a government that wants to learn the lessons of Windrush.”
The report seeks answers as to why dozens of people from the Windrush generation were wrongly detained, stripped of their right to work and deported.
On Thursday evening, protesters shut down White Hall to demand the government cancel its “racist” deportation flight.
They challenged PM Boris Johnson’s claim in Parliament on Wednesday that every deportee is a “serious criminal.”
Among the speakers at the rally organised by BAME Lawyers for Justice were Labour MPs Dianne Abbott, Ms Ribeiro-Addy, Claudia Webbe, Zahra Sultana and Flo Eshalomi.
