Freed, 21 foreign prisoners in jail to await deportation

Criminals sent to England's two foreigners-only jails to be deported have been released early and allowed to stay in Britain instead.

Ministers opened prisons in Canterbury and Bullwood Hall, Essex, for overseas convicts so that they could be sent home once their sentence was complete.

The £15million policy is designed to help immigration staff concentrate on having the robbers, burglars and drug dealers removed.

But at least 21 convicts sent to the prisons have already been freed under the Government's controversial early release scheme.

They walked out 18 days before their sentences reached the halfway point, and were given up to £174 each in spending money.

The prisons are meant only for inmates who will be deported. But officials decided that EU and human rights laws prevent those freed from being kicked out of the country.

The laws bar the deportation of criminals to countries which are considered "unsafe", or those who have established a family life in the UK.

But critics said the decision made a mockery of the Ministry of Justice's foreign- only jails policy.

Scroll down for more...

Tory justice spokesman Nick Herbert said: "This blows a hole in Gordon Brown's pledge to deport all foreign national criminals.

"It is bad enough that the Government has released British prisoners early because the jails are full, without then extending this privilege to foreign inmates as well.

"Ministers were claiming that holding foreign nationals in dedicated prisons was a way to speed up their deportation.

"This was totally misleading. Not only has Brown failed to deport them as he promised, but we now learn he actually has a policy which allows some of them to be released before their sentences are complete."

Canterbury and Bullwood Hall were opened to increase the rate at which the 11,100 foreign nationals held are deported. Last year, only 210 a month were removed.

The target is 4,000 this year - or 330 a month. Prisoners are only supposed to be sent to Canterbury if there is an "expectation of removal".

But at least 13 inmates there have instead been released under the Government's End of Custody Licence.

The policy, which allows inmates to be released 18 days early, was introduced in June as prisons reached bursting point.

Foreigners who may be deported are not supposed to be eligible.

But officials at Canterbury - which holds 284 inmates - have decided that 13 convicts held should be allowed to stay in Britain permanently.

A decision was taken they, too, should be released early.

Eight foreign convicts at Bullwood Hall, which holds 184, were freed for the same reason.

The jails cost about £7.5million each to run.

Earlier yesterday, Prisons Minister David Hanson had said the point of these jails was to "deport prisoners who are rightly to be deported as quickly and as smoothly as possible."

Lord David Ramsbotham, the former chief inspector of prisons said foreign nationals "disrupt ordinary prisons".

A better solution would be for them to serve half of their sentences back home, he added.

"Concentrating on foreign nationals in one prison makes it easier for that prison and also lessens the problems elsewhere.

"But there are a huge number of prisoners in Wormwood Scrubs and Wandsworth, and having two prisons holding about 500 prisoners out of a total of about 11,000 is merely scratching the surface.

"What has been happening at the moment is that they have not been completing deportation procedures in prison and so the prisoners have been sent to the immigration centres to wait while the deportation procedures take place.

"My own view is that we ought to get rid of them before their sentence is completed. We ought to start the deportation procedure.

"Let's say somebody's been given three or four years.

"I believe that they ought to serve half of it here and try and get them back, in the same way that I think we ought to try and get our prisoners who are sentenced to countries overseas back here so they can be resettled into this country."

Gordon Brown, under pressure at Prime Minister's Questions yesterday, pledged to establish agreements with countries which have a total of 3,000 inmates in British jails, so they can be removed more quickly.

The Prime Minister said: "We will do more by signing agreements with countries like Jamaica which have 1,400 foreign prisoners in British cells, Nigeria which has more than 1,000 foreign prisoners in British cells, Vietnam and China 400 and 300 prisoners in British cells.

"We will sign agreements with these countries so we can return prisoners from our cells as expeditiously as possible."

Later, it emerged that the deal with Jamaica was signed in June.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said: "Foreign national prisoners are eligible for End of Custody Licence if the Border and Immigration Agency has notified them of a decision not to deport."

• Canterbury Prison has demolished its chapel and built a block to cater for the various religions of its foreign inmates. The centre is called "a multifaith hall of worship". It has Muslim foot baths and individual prayer rooms. There are no symbols permanently fixed to the walls --the cross from the former chapel was taken down and is now kept in a cupboard. It is only brought out when the Christian service is held on a Sunday. At the opening of the block in April, the jail's principal chaplain, the Rev Cathy Hitchens, revealed that 57 per cent of inmates were Christians, 26 per cent Muslims and 17 per cent other religions including Hindus, Buddhists and Jews. "It is like a mini-United Nations," she said.