Manston Hundreds of former detainees sue government

At least 250 people who were detained at Manston asylum centre when it was dangerously overcrowded and the site of infectious disease outbreaks are suing the government for unlawful detention and other breaches of their rights.

- Diane Taylor

They include a woman who had a miscarriage, a child wrongly classified as an adult, and a teenager who was a victim of torture and trafficking.

The claims arise from a time when the Home Office's Kent processing site for people who had crossed the Channel in small boats was described by a senior union official as "a humanitarian crisis on British soil".

Andy Baxter, the assistant general secretary of the Prison Officers' Association, raised the alarm about conditions on the site in response to concerns from members of his union who worked there.

After visiting, he described a situation that more closely resembled a refugee camp in an unstable country than a Home Office temporary staging post for new arrivals.