Jamaica: Five Men Deported From UK Killed In Past Year

The findings have prompted renewed calls for deportations to the country to be halted

FIVE MEN are known to have been killed in Jamaica in the past year after they were deported to the country from the UK.

The discovery has been made following an investigation by The Guardian, which involved archive research.

The men verified to have been killed since being deported from the UK to Jamaica since March last year are Owen Clarke, 62, Dewayne Robinson, 37, Alphonso Harriott, 56, Paul Mitchell, 50, and Hugh Bennett, 48.

Risks to returnees has hit the headlines in recent years following the deaths of several people who have settled in the country after spending years in the UK.

In 2018, the bodies of grandparents Gayle and Charlie Anderson, aged 71 and 74, were found burned. They had been stabbed to death in their home on the island which was then set alight.

Delroy Walker, 63, was murdered in April of the same year at his home in St Mary and in December the body of British beautician Karen Clearry, 44, was found buried in a shallow grave at her “dream home” in the same parish.

But despite protests from human rights campaigners, concerns over safety and restrictions on deportations to countries where a person’s life is likely to be in danger, the Home Office resumed charter flight deportations to Jamaica in February.

The flights had been temporarily stopped after the Windrush scandal was exposed.

Some of the men who were deported and have since been killed had been convicted of offences involving violence and drugs, the publication reported.

“The Home Office’s own guidance recognises the high level of crime there due to organised gangs,” public law solicitor at MTC & Co Naga Kandiah told The Guardian. “Nobody is saying that these men had not committed crimes, but it is a clear breach of human rights legislation to send them back to a country where their life could be in serious danger.”

Responding to the report, Tottenham MP David Lammy said: “Press pause on all deportations to Jamaica. This is a disgrace. If the UK ignores its own human rights obligations, how can we lecture others?”

“One young person deported last February made contact. He is living in fear, with strangers and does not go out. Life in the UK spent in care (state should have sorted his naturalisation) and had been sentenced to 14 months for dangerous driving. Urgent action needed,” immigration lawyer Jacqueline McKenzie wrote on Twitter.

Diane Abbott was also among those calling for the deportations to be halted.

“These mass deportations to Jamaica and other destinations under the government’s hostile environment must end,” she said.

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