Windrush: Hundreds of people with mental illness sent back to Caribbean

Hundreds of semipermanent sick and mentally sick radical from the Windrush procreation were sent backmost to the Caribbean successful what has been described arsenic a "historic injustice", the BBC has found.

Formerly classified documents uncover astatine slightest 411 radical were sent backmost betwixt the 1950s and the aboriginal 1970s, nether a strategy that was meant to beryllium voluntary.

Families accidental they were ripped isolated and immoderate were ne'er reunited.

The UK authorities said it was committed to tackling the injustices of the era.

A spokesperson said: "We recognise the campaigning of families seeking to code the historical injustice faced by their loved ones, and stay perfectly committed to righting the wrongs faced by those successful the Windrush generation."

The revelations - which echo the Windrush scandal, successful which hundreds of Commonwealth citizens, galore from the Caribbean, were wrongly deported - person sparked calls for a nationalist enquiry into the repatriation policy.

Those sent backmost were among thousands who moved from British colonies to the UK successful the decades aft World War Two. They were known arsenic the Windrush generation, named aft 1 of the archetypal ships to get successful the UK, the HMT Empire Windrush. This twelvemonth volition people the 75th day of the archetypal arrivals.

BBC News has present unearthed documents successful the National Archives revealing the standard of the policy. Some experts present deliberation the strategy whitethorn person been unlawful due to the fact that not each the patients had the intelligence capableness to hold to leave.

June Armatrading's father, Joseph, was 1 of those sent back.

Like different radical from the Caribbean who travelled to the UK aft the war, Joseph was British. His birthplace - St Kitts - was a British colony and inactive administered straight from London, and helium was a British passport holder.

Joseph arrived successful the UK successful 1954 and lived successful Nottingham with his woman and 5 daughters. However, helium began struggling with his intelligence wellness successful the 1960s and was diagnosed with paranoid psychosis. In 1966, helium was returned to St Kitts. He ne'er saw his household again.

June, who is present 65, said her parent told her and her sisters their begetter had "abandoned" them.

She grew up ever believing her begetter didn't emotion them, causing her a "massive, large heartbreak".

Yet the BBC has seen a letter, written by Joseph, asking to instrumentality to the UK truthful helium could rejoin his family. Little is known astir what happened to Joseph aft this.

And successful antecedently confidential letters, authorities officials admitted the process of repatriating Mr Armatrading had "not been correct". He had been wrongly stripped of his passport, the papers revealed.

When we showed the letters to Ms Armatrading, she was shocked.

"I'm upset. It's upsetting, it's truly upsetting… however situation they?" she said. "This was a susceptible man. You're expected to look aft your susceptible people, and they didn't. They conscionable near him - they abandoned him."

Marcia Fenton was taken into attraction arsenic a toddler.

Her mother, Sylvia Calvert, had been sectioned and sent backmost to Jamaica successful the precocious 1960s, and her begetter couldn't header connected his own.

Mother and girl were lone reunited galore years aboriginal successful Jamaica. Sylvia had been discharged by this point, but was inactive unwell. She died successful 2007.

Marcia inactive wants to find retired what happened to her parent erstwhile she arrived backmost successful Jamaica. All she knows is she spent immoderate clip successful Bellevue Hospital, successful the island's capital, Kingston.

"Her being sent backmost to Jamaica robbed maine of a mother," Marcia told the BBC.

She wants an enquiry into however and wherefore radical similar her parent were sent back. "No-one should person been repatriated who was mentally ill," she said. "The British authorities should apologise."

BBC investigation of documents successful the National Archives shows that 411 chronically sick and mentally sick patients were sent backmost to Commonwealth nations successful the Caribbean, betwixt 1958 and 1970.

However, authorities departments bash not look to person kept broad records, truthful the fig could beryllium higher.

The National Assistance Board - the forerunner of the Department for Work and Pensions - was usually successful complaint of the process.

Government letters and argumentation documents from the archives bespeak that each diligent should person "expressed a privation to return". They suggest repatriation should lone beryllium carried retired if it would "benefit" patients and determination were "suitable arrangements" for erstwhile they returned.

However, it is questionable whether susceptible patients could marque these decisions and whether specified suitable arrangements existed. One world insubstantial said intelligence wellness attraction successful the Caribbean astatine that clip lacked "trained unit and resources".

British authorities officials were acrophobic not to springiness the content they were "actively trying to offload… those Commonwealth citizens for whom Britain had small use".

This does not look to person convinced officials successful Jamaica. In 1963, the Office of the High Commissioner wrote to the British authorities complaining that UK hospitals were requesting repatriations "largely connected the grounds of unit connected beds, oregon different infirmary services".

The Windrush generation, arsenic "Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies" (CUKCs), enjoyed the aforesaid ineligible presumption arsenic anyone calved successful the UK.

However, Prof James Hampshire of the University of Sussex said that from the archetypal accomplishment of Commonwealth radical from the Caribbean, determination was a tendency connected the portion of some Labour and Conservative governments to restrict their numbers.

"The intent and effect of authorities that was passed successful that play [1960s and 70s] was to restrict immoderate kinds of migration and not different kinds. It was chiefly aimed astatine what was referred to astatine the clip arsenic 'coloured immigration'."

Prof Kris Gledhill, who has formerly sat arsenic a tribunal justice connected intelligence wellness cases, said it was questionable whether the signifier of repatriating mentally sick patients was legal.

He said: "What you're doing is you're relying connected a 'voluntary choice' which, were you to decently measure the capableness of the idiosyncratic to marque that choice, you'd accidental they don't person capacity."

Immigration lawyer Jacqueline McKenzie, of Leigh Day, represented hundreds of victims of the 2018 Windrush scandal. About the repatriation of the sick and mentally ill, she said: "It's perfectly shocking that this was happening.

"Lives person been destroyed. The authorities present owes it to the descendants of radical to supply them with answers and immoderate benignant of redress."

Doctors who researched the interaction of being sent backmost to the Caribbean recovered it had a antagonistic interaction and that galore wanted to instrumentality to the UK.

In the aboriginal 1970s, Dr Aggrey Burke - the UK's archetypal achromatic NHS advisor psychiatrist - concluded it had not been successful the champion interests of patients with terrible intelligence unwellness to nonstop them from the UK to Jamaica's Bellevue Hospital.

He present says determination was a deficiency of curiosity astir what happened to the patients: "No 1 seemed to person an involvement successful 'what then?' The adjacent stage."

Another psychiatrist successful the 1970s, Dr George Mahy successful Barbados, reviewed the cases of astir 200 patients with psychiatric illnesses primitively from the Caribbean.

He recovered that astir 52% had been advised to instrumentality from the UK and successful galore cases they were fixed fiscal assistance from the UK government. He said that galore of these patients had beardown regrets and wanted to instrumentality to England.

Responding to the BBC, a authorities spokesperson said: "The wellbeing of patients successful infirmary detained nether the Mental Health Act is paramount. The instrumentality has changed since the clip of these cases - present an autarkic tribunal has to hold that immoderate repatriation would beryllium successful the champion interests of the patient."

No photos past of Joseph Armatrading. At her location successful Nottingham, his girl June says she remembers seeing 1 of him with her and her sisters, but astatine immoderate constituent implicit the years it was mislaid.

However, she is determined that her father's communicative is not forgotten.

"The authorities inactive needs to reply these questions arsenic to what happened to my dad, what happened to Joseph Armatrading? They've near america lost."

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