Minister Robert Jenrick ordered painting over of child asylum unit murals

Murals of Mickey Mouse and different cartoon characters designed to invited kid asylum seekers to a reception centre successful Dover person been painted over, by bid of the migration minister.

The Home Office said the Kent Intake Unit (KIU) opened past November to look aft unaccompanied kid migrants.

Facilities included softer interrogation rooms and an extracurricular space, it added.

There were besides supplication rooms, a larger reception country and improved information measures to guarantee children's safety, the Home Office said.

A spokesperson confirmed the murals were removed connected Tuesday, adding: "We bash each we tin to guarantee children are safe, unafraid and supported arsenic we urgently question placements with a section authority.

"All children person a payment interrogation connected their accomplishment astatine accommodation, which includes questions designed to place imaginable indicators of trafficking oregon safeguarding issues.

"Our precedence is to halt the boats and disrupt the radical smugglers."

Labour's shadiness migration curate Stephen Kinnock condemned Mr Jenrick's order, saying the thought that removing the murals would "somehow halt the boats is utterly absurd".

He said it was a motion of a "chaotic authorities successful crisis, whose failing attack means each they person near is pugnacious speech and cruel and callous policies".

Labour had a program to "end the unsafe crossings, decision the transgression smuggler gangs, and extremity edifice usage by clearing the asylum backlog," helium added.

The one newspaper, which was archetypal to study the story, quoted sources arsenic saying unit astatine the centre were "horrified" by Mr Jenrick's bid and resisted carrying retired the work.

But continuing problems, including aesculapian isolation practices astatine KIU. The study concluded: "Inspectors recovered nary examples of notable affirmative signifier during this inspection" astatine KIU.

The Home Office said it had taken enactment to code immoderate of the recommendations.