‘Yes, it linked to Tony in the control room. There were only two of us on that night…’
‘Only two for a facility with 32 people awaiting deportation?’
‘In reality, there were 34 detainees. Two of the mothers had children with them.’
‘Children were locked up too?’
‘If they were too young to be separated from their mothers, yes.’
A barrister rose in the middle of the court, wearing his gown and wig. Silly chuff.
‘Yes, Mr Stride,’ Mrs Challoner raised her eyebrow in annoyance at being interrupted.
‘This is as per Home Office guidelines, Coroner. I direct you to the Review into the Welfare in Detention of Vulnerable Persons of 2016 and the subsequent passage of UK Statutory Instruments, 2018, no. 409 on the Rules for Short-Term Holding Facilities. There are no guidelines or rules as to staffing levels in a facility.’
‘Thank you, Mr Stride, I am so happy somebody is up to date with the minutiae of government policy.’ Mrs Challoner paused for a moment before returning to her original line of inquiry. ‘There were only two of you on duty?’
‘Right, there should be four, but one person was off sick and another had recently resigned.’
‘Two people to manage a facility with 34 detainees. Was that normal?’
Joe Cummings shrugged his shoulders. ‘I don’t know if it was normal, but it was usual.’
Mr Stride was on his feet again. ‘Government policy…’
Mrs Challoner stopped him from speaking with a wave of her hand. ‘We will be asking the company’s representative when we call him, Mr Stride. You will have your opportunity to explain if two people are enough to ensure the safety and security of 34 detainees. In the meantime, I will continue to question Mr Cummings.’ She switched her focus to the witness as the barrister reluctantly sat down.
Ridpath smiled to himself. Mrs Challoner was on fine form today.
‘Let us return to the body of Ms Chen. You say there was blood everywhere?’
‘Everywhere,’ repeated Joe Cummings, ‘it seemed to be coming from a slash to her throat.’
‘So you called the control room.’
‘Yes, and they called the police and ambulance.’
‘And what happened?’
‘We automatically went into standard operating procedure. All lights were switched on in the facility and all doors were checked. Our paramount concern is the safety and security of our detainees.’
‘Did an alarm go off?’
‘Yes.’
‘And did this wake all the detainees?’
‘It did. And the alarm alerted the local police station, who sent three squad cars to the Removal Facility.’
‘Why?’
‘For additional security in case anybody tried to escape.’
‘What time did the ambulance and the police arrive?’
‘I would guess ten minutes later.’
‘And what did you do?’
‘As per operating procedure, after checking the corridor doors were all locked, I returned to the control room on the ground floor.’
‘Did you lock the door to the dead woman’s room?’
Joe Cummings stared down. ‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘I didn’t think. I wanted to follow the manual and the manual says once the alarm sounds, I am to check the doors and return to the control room if I am not already there.’
‘How come the room was unlocked in the first place, Mr Cummings?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘But wasn’t it your responsibility to lock all the detainees in their rooms after 9.15 p.m.?’
‘Yes, but…’
‘But what?’
‘I thought I locked the room, but…’ his voice trailed off, ‘…but I guess I didn’t. The company has given me demerit points for this error.’
‘So you think you just forgot?’
‘I don’t know. I may have missed this room.’
‘Not easy to do, is it?’
‘What?’
‘Miss a room? I mean there are only sixteen on the floor.’
Joe Cummings shook his head. ‘I thought I locked it but…’
‘You may have missed it.’
Mr Stride was on his feet again. ‘I think the witness has made his point, Coroner. He has been censured by New Hampshire Detention Services for this regrettable error.’
‘Thank you for helping me, Mr Stride, but I’m going to ask the witness one more time. Did you or did you not lock the door, Mr Cummings?’
‘The truth is I just don’t know. I don’t remember.’ Joe Cummings looked across at his barrister and received a reassuring nod. The training had paid off. ‘If you are asked a difficult question, simply answer “I don’t remember” and continue with this response until the coroner gives up.’
Mrs Challoner shuffled her papers. ‘You said after the alarm was triggered, you immediately returned to the control room.’
‘Standard operating procedure.’
‘Without locking the room with Wendy Chen’s body in it?’
‘Correct. I was upset. I’d never seen so much blood before, it was everywhere. I just wanted to get away from the blood.’
‘So anybody could have entered the room if you didn’t lock it?’
Mr Stride was on his feet again. ‘I thought the coroner’s duty was to find out who died, how they died and why they died, ma’am. We seem to be stepping into unknown territory with these questions.’
Mrs Challoner stared at him. ‘I am perfectly aware of the parameters of my job, Mr Stride, I do not need anybody to tell me what they are. The government and its agents, in this case New Hampshire Detention Services, has a duty of care for all people in its facilities. It is my job to see if this duty of care has been breached.’
‘But ma’am…’
‘I’ll thank you to interrupt me less, Mr Stride, and listen to my questions more. Do I make myself clear?’
The barrister held his hands together in front of his body as if in prayer. ‘Yes, ma’am. Please accept my heartfelt apologies.’
Ridpath had never heard a less heartfelt apology.
‘Mr Cummings,’ the coroner continued, ‘so these detainees were locked in their rooms at four o’clock in the morning with an alarm blaring…’
‘It’s not blaring, ma’am, merely ringing.’
The coroner rolled her eyes. ‘So these detainees were locked in their room with the alarm ringing. Was any explanation given to them?’
‘Not until after the police arrived.’
‘And you made an announcement?’
‘Correct ma’am. But they were used to it.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The alarm goes off by itself once a week.’
‘Once a week?’
‘There’s something wrong with it.’
‘And it’s never been fixed?’
‘It’s been fixed many times, but it still goes off. These days, the police ring us before they come out to check whether it’s a false alarm.’
Mrs Challoner shuffled through her papers, finding the correct one and reading out loud, ‘This is the police transcript of the call. “Your alarm has gone off again, Wilmslow Immigrant Removal Centre, what is it this time?” That was the police sergeant speaking. “We’ve got a dead ‘un. Topped herself.” Who was that?’
‘Tony, Tony Osborne, the other guard that night.’
‘We will be calling him later, members of the jury.’ She turned back to the witness. ‘How did Tony know Ms Chen was dead?’
‘I must have told him.’
‘How did you know she was dead?’
Joe Cummings thought for a moment. ‘All the blood, I just assumed…’
‘You didn’t lock the room after you discovered the body?’
‘No.’
‘You didn’t enter the room?’
‘No.’
‘Why did you think she killed himself?’
‘That’s what happens. People don’t want to go back so they…’
‘Kill themselves?’
Joe Cummings shrugged his shoulders.
‘How many people have killed themselves at the facility, Mr Cummings?’
Mr Stride stood. ‘The witness is just a detainee custody officer, he can’t be expected to know the information.’
‘You’re correct, Mr Stride, I will be asking the question to the manager of the Removal Centre when we call him. In the meantime, I will rephrase it. In your knowledge, Mr Cummings, how many people have killed themselves at this facility?’
‘In the time I’ve worked there, to my knowledge, three, but this was the first one to use a knife. The other two jumped into the stairwell.’
‘Thank you, Mr Cummings. One final question. You heard the pathologist, Dr Schofield, state Ms Chen was murdered. What do you say to that?’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I thought she committed suicide. How could she have been murdered? This was a secure facility.’
‘I keep asking myself the same question. Thank you, Mr Cummings. Any questions from the family, Miss Wong?’
The interpreter spoke to the old man and his wife and they shook their heads.
‘Any questions, Mr Stride?’
The barrister was on his feet quickly. ‘Just one, ma’am. Mr Cummings, were the standard operating procedures of the Centre followed at all times after your discovery of the body?’
‘They were, sir.’
‘Thank you, Mr Cummings.’ Mr Stride nodded at his briefing solicitors and sat down.
‘You may leave the court and go home if you wish, Mr Cummings, but remember you are still under oath and are liable to be called again if this court sees fit. Thank you for your testimony.’
Joe Cummings left the dock and walked over to sit beside his colleagues from the Centre.
‘It’s time to call Mr Tony Osborne to the stand.’
The tall Custody Officer levered himself off his seat, receiving a pat on the arm from Joe Cummings and a whispered ‘good luck.’ He walked nervously to the witness box.
Jenny Oldfield handed him the Bible and he swore the oath to tell the truth. Ridpath glanced at his watch. 12.05. This would be the last witness before lunch.
‘Could you state your name, age and occupation for the record.’
‘Tony Osborne, I’m 46 and I’m a Detainee Custody Officer.’
‘Please speak up, Mr Osborne. You have been a Custody Officer for the last thirteen years?’
The man cleared his throat and leant closer to the mike. ‘That… that is correct, ma’am, after leaving the army I was employed at Forest Green Prison and just over two years ago, I transferred to Wilmslow.’
‘Why did you transfer from Forest Green to the Wilmslow Immigrant Removal Centre?’
Ridpath listened closely to the answer. Would Osborne reveal he had been under investigation?
‘I live in Handforth, ma’am, and the Removal Centre is closer to home. Plus the pay, overtime and benefits are better with New Hampshire.’
He didn’t mention anything about the investigation. For the first time, Ridpath wondered if he was hiding anything else. They would find out more when they brought them in this afternoon.
‘You seem to be nervous, Mr Osborne, why?’
‘It’s my first time in court, ma’am. It’s a bit intimidating.’
‘Don’t worry, we are just trying to discover the truth of what happened.’ A long pause as Mrs Challoner checked her notes. ‘Do you enjoy your work?’
Osborne appeared confused. ‘Sorry, ma’am?’
‘You can call me Coroner or Mrs Challoner. I asked, do you enjoy your work?’
‘It’s a job, Coroner. But I enjoy the interaction with the detainees.’
‘Even when you are deporting them?’
Tony Osborne smiled nervously at the jury. ‘It’s part of the job, defending the country’s borders. Somebody has to do it.’
Mrs Challoner made a note on her blue legal pad. ‘Let’s talk about the night of the death, shall we? What time did you go on duty?’
‘At six, I was working the late shift. It should have been my day off, and I’d only finished at noon on the day, but they were short-staffed so I volunteered for the overtime.’
‘Is that usual?’
‘Like I said, there’s always overtime at the Centre. It’s hard to get the staff.’
‘So you only had six hours between shifts?’
‘I live nearby so I went home, had a shower and slept.’
‘You had been on duty the previous day when Ms Chen arrived?’
‘That’s correct, ma’am… I mean Coroner.’
‘So were you tired or exhausted after working such long hours?’
Osborne was looking more relaxed now. He sat back in the witness chair. ‘Not at all. I was used to it and anyway, I usually take a nap on my breaks.’
Mrs Challoner made another note. ‘So you came on duty at six, and what did you do?’
‘The usual.’
‘Take us through it, please?’
‘I checked the logbook to see if anything had happened earlier…’
‘Had anything happened?’
He shook his head. ‘It was a pretty quiet day. There was a removal scheduled for the following morning, but he was happy to go so we weren’t expecting any problems.’
‘Who was that?’
‘A Romanian, I think. He had finished serving two years for assault and possession, and we were sending him back. He seemed to think it was a good result.’ He smiled at the jury again.
‘What else did you do?’
‘I had a verbal briefing from the Duty Manager, Mr Carlton, and I walked through the facility, checking all the detainees. Some were doing their washing, others finishing their dinner and a few more watching TV.’
‘All was quiet?’
‘Yeah, all normal.’
‘Afterwards?’
‘Myself and Joe Cummings did our roll call at 9 p.m. and locked up for the night.’
‘By locked up, you mean locked all the detainees in their cells?’
‘We prefer to call them rooms.’
‘And the victim, Wendy Chen also known as Wendy Tang, how was she?’
‘Seemed fine, I didn’t really notice her.’
‘Why?’
‘She’d only just come in and we hadn’t received any information on her yet from Immigration.’
‘So you only had a name, you didn’t know why she was being detained?’
‘Right. Ours not to reason why and all that.’
‘I thought it was a statutory rule that a detainee must be told why they are being detained? As Mr Stride so helpfully pointed out, it was decreed in 2018.’ The coroner held aloft a copy of the legislation.
‘They should be told when they are being processed but the paperwork hadn’t arrived from Immigration Enforcement.’
‘An unfortunate oversight. Let’s move on to later in the night. You commenced your rounds at 3 a.m.?’
‘That’s correct. We take it in turns to walk round the facility and we need to swipe the card on the readers.’
Mrs Challoner picked up a printout. ‘I see you were slightly late when you got to the victim’s floor. The printout on the readers says you arrived at 3.08.’
‘I went for a pee. We’re allowed a ten-minute leeway to touch our card to the reader. Standard operating procedure.’
‘All was quiet?’
‘Very.’
‘The victim’s door was locked?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t check each door. Standard operating procedure is to check the doors at the end of the corridors only. I usually just look at the doors as I’m walking along the corridor. I would have noticed if it was open.’
‘But you can’t be sure.’
‘No.’
‘And you didn’t look inside her room.’
‘No. Standard…’
Mrs Challoner held up
her hand to stop him speaking. ‘We understand, Mr Osborne. How do you think the door was left unlocked?’
Tony Osborne shrugged his shoulders. ‘Beats me. Joe must have forgotten to lock it. He did the second floor and I did the third floor that evening.’
‘So you did your check but didn’t notice an open door.’
‘No, I didn’t notice it was open.’
‘What time did Mr Osborne go on his rounds?’
‘Bang on 4 a.m. Joe was always on time.’
‘What were you doing?’
‘Watching the cameras in the control room. A few were on the blink, but all the rest were working.’
‘How many cameras were not working?’
Tony Osborne counted on his fingers. ‘Six, I think, but it may have been more. The incident happened over a month ago.’
‘Was the camera in the corridor outside the victim’s door working?’
‘No, it’s one of the ones on the blink. We reported it but nobody was going to come out to fix them late at night. It was probably just a fuse.’
‘Let’s move to the discovery of the body now, shall we? You received a report on the walkie-talkie from Mr Cummings at 4.06 a.m. What did you do?’
‘I followed procedure.’
‘Which is?’
‘Activate the alarm button, check all the cameras, check all doors are locked and secured and ring the police and the ambulance service.’
‘You told the emergency services the victim had topped herself, why?’ The coroner seemed to remember something, and turned to the jury. ‘Topped in this case is slang for suicide. Please answer the question, Mr Osborne.’
‘When Joe told me there was blood everywhere, I just presumed, didn’t I?’
‘Because it had happened before?’
He nodded. ‘Some of them cut themselves. They don’t want to go back, see. They’re looking for a Section 35.’
‘Section 35?’
‘A medical report on their mental and physical state. It’s a way of getting out of it.’
‘Out of what?’
‘Out of deportation. Some of them try it on.’
‘Miss Chen wasn’t trying it on, though, was she?’
He shook his head. ‘She was a goner.’
‘You sat in the court when the pathologist, Dr Schofield, gave his evidence Ms Chen didn’t commit suicide, but was murdered. What do you think, Mr Osborne?’
Mr Stride was on his feet. ‘Mrs Challoner, this officer is not a medical practitioner or a pathologist, he cannot be expected to “think” anything. His presumption of suicide was based on information relayed by the discoverer of the victim, Mr Cummings.’
Where the Innocent Die Page 19