2 days ago
Contractor in Heathrow migrant escape ‘lost another deportee'
The contractor at the centre of a migrant escape at Heathrow airport 'lost' another deportee in Istanbul, a former officer has claimed.
Gary Costin, a former deportee custody officer with the contractor Mitie, said the escape attempt at Heathrow was not an isolated case, and cited four other examples of deportees attempting to abscond in the past three years.
On Sunday, an illegal migrant about to be deported back to India was filmed being chased across the airport tarmac pursued by security officers before being caught.
He was being escorted by contractors Mitie Care and Custody on behalf of the Home Office.
Mr Costin, who was sacked by Mitie after sharing a Reform MP's post, claimed: 'Subcontractors who were working for Mitie taking people back to Somalia lost this individual in Turkey.
'I don't believe he has ever been found. He managed to escape through a hole in the roof, in the toilet or smoking area at Istanbul airport.'
Speaking on Talk Radio, he also alleged another deportee on a courtroom visit for a hearing managed to escape out of a window while a third pushed past escorts on an air bridge crowded with passengers at Heathrow before he was subsequently found in a lavatory.
A fourth managed to smash a window in the back of a van in Heathrow before evading two escorts, claimed Mr Costin. A team leader managed to detain him.
He alleged that the 'gene pool' of good escorts had been watered down by an intensive recruitment campaign by Mitie.
'Training then was done by inexperienced staff who hadn't been in the job five minutes. And it was like the blind leading the blind,' he said.
He alleged a basic lack of fitness among officers.
'The fitness of 50 per cent of the staff, I would say, is questionable, and there is no fitness test whatsoever. There were thoughts and talk about bringing fitness tests in, but this didn't happen because they realised they would lose too many staff because of this,' he said.
Mitie said it could not comment on individual operations but sources maintained the incident at Heathrow airport on Sunday was extremely rare and was being fully investigated.
'We are proud of the high standards and professional conduct that our care and custody colleagues exhibit every day, often in very challenging circumstances, when carrying out escorting services,' said a source.
'All of our officers have undergone an extensive training programme including the Home Office manual for escorting safely training course – specialist training to ensure escorts have all the skills required to safely remove people from the country – as well as having annual refreshers.'
Mr Costin was sacked after sharing a post on X by then Reform leader Richard Tice. It commented on a GB News article headlined 'Home Office Islamic Network aimed to recruit Muslim staff and 'influence policymakers' from the inside'.
The piece pointed to Home Office documents showing that a group of more than 700 civil servants aimed to make policy more inclusive of Muslim needs.
Mr Costin, who had spent 15 years working for government contractors G4S and Mitie, forwarded a screenshot of Tice's post, which had already been captioned 'Uh oh'.
The 57-year-old was suspended in April last year and later sacked, although he had not added any of his own comments when sending the message to a WhatsApp group.
