AN ELDERLY man believed to be suffering from dementia who has alleged links to the Windrush scandal was among seven people deported to Jamaica today.

About one in 10 of the people the Home Office had hoped to remove on the early morning flight were deported after a horrific night of “panic and chaos,” during which two young men who have lived in Britain since childhood attempted suicide. 

Dozens had their tickets cancelled following legal claims, leaving just six or seven people on board a plane with a capacity of 50 – far fewer that the “long list” of 90 people that the Home Office originally planned to deport. 

The flight went ahead despite reports that the Jamaican authorities had urged the British government to halt the deportations over Covid-19 fears after two returnees tested positive. 

Campaigners told the Morning Star that a 66-year-old man with health conditions who had lived in Britain for 30 years was among those bundled onto the 1am flight without having had proper legal advice. He is also said to be the son of a Windrush-era British citizen, potentially making his removal unlawful. 

Karen Doyle of the Movement for Justice campaign, which has been campaigning against the flight, said that she had spoken to him moments before, when he was confused and asking for help. 

“He is very frail. He could barely walk. The other detainees were helping him dress and shower and he couldn’t go upstairs,” she said.  

“When I spoke to him, he couldn’t remember his date of birth. He didn’t remember what date it was. He was very confused. [It was] clear he had dementia of some kind or some cognitive disability.”

Although the man was represented by a solicitor, Ms Doyle said that he had failed to press for a medical assessment or file an injunction.

“This was someone with a very valid case, but [who] was utterly failed by an incompetent, negligent solicitor,” she said. 

His case was then referred late on Tuesday night to Detention Action, which sought an urgent out-of-hours injunction to try to halt the deportation, saying that the man had “clear Windrush links.” But despite these efforts, he was deported.  

The group said the Home Office’s actions in the case constituted a “national farce.” 

“The [Home Office] hasn’t got a clue what it’s doing,” Detention Action director Bella Sankey said. “If it was a private company, it would have been shut down for repeated regulatory breaches. 

“Charter flights are an abomination. It is shocking to see so many people’s lives hanging in the balance and nearly all without time or access to properly make their case. 

“There is no way a mass expulsion can ever uphold human rights or ensure that those with the right to be here are allowed to stay.”

The Home Office claimed that no-one on board the flight was a British citizen, British national or member of the Windrush generation. 

Hugh, 64, was also among those deported after living in Britain for 21 years. His local MP Kate Osamor had been campaigning to stop his deportation.

She said: "The removal of my constituent which potentially endangers his safety, partly on the basis that he had no British children, following the tragic death of his young daughter as a result of medical negligence in 2019, is just another example of the callousness of the Home Secretary's immigration regime."

Ms Doyle described a state of “absolute panic and desperation” among detainees in the moments leading up to the flight taking off, when many were given last-minute legal reprieves. 

Two men were taken off the plane after they attempted suicide and required hospital treatment. 

The flight left after four families had been denied requests to visit their loved ones in Colnbrook detention centre near Heathrow despite having booked slots. 

“The men inside were so distressed they couldn’t see their families one last time,” Ms Doyle said. “It’s real fear and panic. It really is terrorism. The government talk a lot about terorrism, but this is the terrorising of whole communities.
 
“I think every aspect of how this flight operated has really exposed the injustice of the charter flights as a whole; at the top end, a sovereign nation saying: ‘Please don’t send this plane because it will increase our Covid risk,’ to young men here from childhood trying to kill themselves to get off the flight,” she added. 

The British government has also been accused of misleading the Jamaican authorities over whether those being returned had been tested for Covid-19, following reports that the Jamaican government had urged the Home Office to cancel the flight over fears that it would export the Delta variant of the virus to the island after two returnees tested positive. 

Windrush lawyer Jacqueline McKenzie said on Twitter that Home Office officials had assured the Jamaican government that all detainees had received a negative PCR test ahead of the flight, but it was later claimed that all had been offered a test prior to boarding.  

“When [and] what use would that have been a few hours before the flight was due to leave?” she fumed. “But worse, how dare the Home Office directly mislead the Jamaican government? 

“You cannot visit Jamaica without evidence of a negative PCR test taken 72 hours before a journey. The British government is prepared to put the already weakened healthcare systems of Jamaica, an ally, under serious threat by misleading them and by offering them 300,000 vaccines.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “It is wrong to suggest we misled the Jamaican authorities. 

“We have been clear that all those on the flight will be seen by a healthcare professional prior to their departure and offered a PCR test.”

The Jamaican high commission was approached for comment.