Home Secretary Priti Patel has defended a deportation flight to Jamaica after saying those onboard were behind 'appalling crimes'.
In the early hours of August 11, a man from Birmingham was among seven criminals kicked out of the UK on a mass deportation flight that departed from Stansted Airport. The move was slammed as an “abomination” by human rights activists who alleged some detainees made suicidal attempts before the departure.
But Priti said: "These people are responsible for most terrible crimes and have disobeyed our laws.
"The British people should be in no doubt of my determination to remove these criminals to protect both the victims of their crimes and the public. We remove foreign criminals from the UK to different countries every week and this flight is no different."
The flight was scheduled for 50 detainees but the decision to deport 43 of the detainees was revoked due to action from specialist legal firms. 24 hours before the departure, 18 cases were successful in preventing their deportation.
As per the reports published by Birmingham Mail, the Home Office said the sentences for the 43 people totalled 245 years, included crimes like murder, attempted murder, rape, and sex offences against minors, drugs and firearms offences. No one on the flight was born in the UK and those who returned were Jamaican nationals.
They continued: "There has been strict checking done to make sure that the ones that have returned are not eligible for the Windrush Scheme. None of them were British Citizens, British Nationals or members of the Windrush generation."
The Home Office has used over 75 charter flights to deport foreign national offenders and other immigration offenders to countries across Europe and around the rest of the world since April 2020. Jamaica represented one per cent of the UK's overall enforced returns in 2020.
