ITV undercover film alleges torture survivors housed unlawfully at Sussex camp

An undercover ITV reporter took a job as a welfare officer at Crowborough, a former military training camp in East Sussex now used to house asylum seekers, and filmed what he found for a documentary called Inside The Asylum Camp. According to the film, screening and welfare checks at the site are so poor that some residents slip through the system entirely. The reporter says he identified four or five survivors of torture who should not have been sent to the camp at all.

The footage suggests the checks are often rushed. Two comprehensive welfare checks are meant to happen every month, but staff appear to admit skipping questions they are required to ask — one officer tells the undercover reporter: “you don't need to go in too deep”. Others seem to acknowledge falling behind on the 1,000 checks they are supposed to complete monthly, with one saying: “We're so fucked.” Concerns logged on a resident's file are dismissed too: “Those flags mean nothing,” a welfare officer is filmed saying, adding that “nobody ever looks at them again”. Asked whether people fall through the net because of brief checks, the officer replies: “Oh, absolutely.”

The legal problem runs deeper. Last May the high court ruled that a Home Office policy forcing torture survivors to share rooms was unlawful — and Crowborough houses people in large dormitories. Crowborough and Wethersfield in Essex are the two former military sites already in use, part of the government's push to end hotel accommodation for asylum seekers. Plans for three more sites — Bicester, Barnham and Linton-on-Ouse — have drawn local opposition, largely driven by fears of rising violent crime, though police have recorded very low levels of even minor offences among asylum seekers at the two existing camps.

Clearsprings Ready Homes runs Crowborough. Its latest accounts show it pulls in millions of pounds in income every day from asylum accommodation contracts, and its boss, Graham King, has become the first asylum accommodation billionaire.

Louise Calvey, executive director of the charity Asylum Matters, which campaigns for housing asylum seekers in communities rather than camps, called the findings “appalling”. “Brave survivors endure appalling experiences arriving to a country where they thought they'd be safe – a supposed civilised country, placing them in camps without the support they desperately need,” she said. She added that people held in isolation for long periods without enough water showed “just how far we have fallen as a country”, and called on the government to urgently review its use of the camps. The Home Office and Clearsprings have been approached for comment.