Safeguarding referrals of trafficked teenagers at border ‘worrying’ – inspector

Inspectors have warned it was “particularly worrying” Border Force could not find safeguarding referrals for two children at the UK-France border who were later re-trafficked to the UK.

An unannounced visit to the UK’s five short-term holding facilities across Calais, Dunkirk and Coquelles in France in November 2024 found there were “too many shortcomings” in safeguarding and “poor oversight” over use of force as priority concerns from the inspection.

A report published on Monday detailed how a 16-year-old boy and 14-year-old girl were re-trafficked to the UK shortly after they were handed to the French border police, Police aux Frontieres (PAF), and no copy of referrals from Border Force could be found.

The findings said that Border Force had “significant safeguarding concerns” about the girl who was discovered zipped into a holdall in the boot of a car.

But she was found a month later after she had been handed to PAF, in the UK, having escaped from a warehouse where she was kept with five other women, as she feared she would be forced into prostitution.

Meanwhile, the boy had told of his history of abuse and trafficking, and was found two weeks later in the UK and referred to the National Referral Mechanism because it was found there were “reasonable grounds” that he had been trafficked.

The report said: “Records suggested Border Force had made a safeguarding referral to PAF in both cases, but it could not find a copy of the referrals.”

Chief inspector of prisons Charlie Taylor added: “It was particularly worrying that Border Force could not locate safeguarding referrals of vulnerable detainees, including two children who were subsequently re-trafficked.”

The detention centres are part of the UK’s ‘juxtaposed controls’ where Border Force identifies people to be refused entry to the country before they leave French territory.

From April to September 2024, 3,778 people were detained at the sites while a decision was made whether to grant or refuse them entry to the UK.

Inspectors found in general, cases were processed “reasonably efficiently” to minimise the length of time people were detained but there were “too many exceptions”, including adults and children being held for more than 10 hours which they said was “far too long for such conditions”.

Poor oversight of the use of force on detainees was also raised, where Border Force could provide no evidence it had reviewed use of force paperwork for any incident in the last year, and staff kept no records to review CCTV footage.

Inspectors said this was the case even in concerning incidents such as when a detainee lost consciousness when three officers used pain-inducing techniques on him because he refused to be fingerprinted in May 2024.

The report said officers did not note how long he was held in position, and when an officer tried to call emergency medical help over the phone and radio she was unable to get a signal, which was also a key concern.

It added: “She had to leave the room to call out to care and custody staff to request emergency assistance.

“Phone signal problems had still not been resolved when we inspected the facility five months later.”

The report noted detention custody officers had not used force in the last year but there were 48 incidents involving Border Force, with paperwork suggesting most of the force was “minimal”.

But it added of three cases reviewed in the last six months, several staff had used pain compliance “but not always with sufficient documented justification or detail on the techniques used”.

In four cases of age assessments looked at by inspectors, they also found the tests were not in line with the legal threshold and, therefore, “unsafe”.

The correct test is for someone’s physical appearance and demeanour to suggest “very strongly that they are significantly over 18” to recognise the margin of error in the assessment, but officers were assessing individuals as ‘over 18’.

The report noted one of the detainees who was assessed at 20 years old, later had seven officers use force on him.

The Home Office has been contacted for comment.