Dear IRR News subscriber,

On Sunday 30 March, a forty-year-old Jamaican woman, Christine Case, died in Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre after reportedly suffering a heart attack. She is the fourteenth person to have died in immigration detention in the UK in the last ten years, and there have been repeated concerns about the level of medical care in the detention estate.

In news from across the UK, Berry Sohal, one of seven victims of a racist attack by the same gang in Chigwell in November 2013, has criticised the police for their delay in collecting and releasing vital CCTV evidence. The decision by prosecutors not to charge anyone over the mortuary mix-up involving the bodies of Christopher Alder, who died in police custody in 1998, and an elderly Nigerian lady, has been upheld following a review. And a report by the Northamptonshire Rights and Equality Council has stated that Northamptonshire Police disproportionately stop and search black and Asian people in the locality.

Jon Burnett

Assistant Editor, IRR News