Undercover ITV Documentary Examines Welfare Checks at Crowborough Asylum Camp

An undercover reporter who took a job as a welfare officer at Crowborough secretly filmed inside the former military training camp, according to an ITV documentary, Inside The Asylum Camp. The camp houses asylum seekers, people who have applied to live in the country on the grounds that they cannot safely return home.

The Guardian reported that the documentary revealed inadequate welfare checks at the site, and that torture survivors may have been placed there unlawfully. Accommodation at Crowborough is in large dormitories. The site is run by Clearsprings Ready Homes. According to the Guardian, welfare officers there are supposed to carry out two comprehensive welfare checks each month, which it describes as a total of 1,000 welfare checks per month.

Footage shows a Crowborough welfare officer telling the undercover reporter that "you don't need to go in too deep" when it came to checks. In another part of the footage, a welfare officer says that flags for concerns on asylum seekers' files mean nothing and that nobody ever looks at them again.

The undercover reporter said he identified four or five torture survivors who should not have been sent to the Crowborough military camp.

The Home Office, the UK government department responsible for immigration, accommodates asylum seekers on two former military sites: Crowborough and Wethersfield in Essex. Separately, the High Court, a senior court in England and Wales, ruled that a Home Office policy change forcing torture survivors to share rooms was unlawful.