Serco given Yarl’s Wood immigration contract despite ‘vast failings’

The Home Office has been condemned after it renewed a private security giant’s contract to run a controversial women’s immigration detention centre where staff have been accused of sexual misconduct.

The decision to pay £70m to Serco to operate Yarl’s Wood in Bedfordshire over the next eight years was attacked by MPs, refugee groups and penal reformers.Yarl’s Wood, Britain’s largest detention centre for women facing deportation, has suffered a succession of damaging allegations since Serco began managing the facility in 2007.

Independent article