Gross negligence? Knowingly placing an individual with TB on a barge intended for 500?

[Nevermay]

or sending anyone onto the barge at all, when it was known the water supply was contaminated with legionnaires disease?

Gross negligence? Reckless endangerment?

Any individual who contributed to the situation, placing asylum seekers on the barge while knowing either that one had TB, or that the water supply was unsafe needs to be taken to court and charged, who ever they are.

surely?

Tons of U.K. properties have issues with legionella

Including St Andrews University in 2020;

Students...have been told to use bottled water and temporary shower facilities...
https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/education/higher-education/1729909/legionella-outbreak-at-prestigious-st-andrews-university-halls-of-residence/

Looks like some people are trying to go to the South Pole..

https://www.flickr.com/photos/62440303@N04/5683217529

Its better connected than Ascension Island.

You seem to be suggesting that accepting asylum seekers - people fleeing the most unimaginable hardships is a bad thing? @Clavinova do you think the UK should not be accepting asylum seekers?

@Clavinovado you think the UK should not be accepting asylum seekers?

It has been proven by example that Clav thinks whatever some papers say. I have this imagination that in real life they wear a woolly hat with deelybopper style quotes on either side. And then I take my meds.

The awful hellhole they are leaving is a holiday destination.

https://www.travelrepublic.co.uk/1-98-1-13/all-inclusive-hotels-in-albania

And "Clinging to a rudder in the rough sea for days and days" in the English Channel? You know people swim that right?

"now imagine they are white." doesn't work for me because I don't care about skin colour and I know it's just a ploy to get extra virtual signalling points for most.

Guiltridden12345 Have you got a link to the story of the boy washed up on a UK beach or did you mean Alan Kurdi who died half way around the world but whose photo was used to enrage gullible people in the UK?

• it’s holiday destination? What a dirty camp in Calais with traffickers everywhere. Is it?
• even if it is - it’s irrelevant. France don’t need to keep them just because they are on the continent.
• people swim in the channel? Yes experienced swimmers swim in competitions or for charity - with safety teams and the lot. Are you genuinely using this as an argument to suggest that it’s ok for asylum seekers to come over in rubber dinghy’s hmm because they should be able to swim like a record breaking swimmer.
• and the fact you have said you don’t care about colour - suggests you do

idiocy

@LastTrainEast
"now imagine they were white" doesn't work for me because it's a misquote from a film - it was in fact "now imagine she was white"

The story behind the quote:
The quote comes from the film A Time to Kill, which is based on the John Grisham book of the same name.
The film and the book is the tale of Jake Brigance, a white attorney who was hired to defend Carl Lee Hailey, a black man who shot and killed two men who raped his daughter.
The quote comes from the very end of the film. Jake Brigance (played by Matthew McConaughey) tells the jury to close their eyes while he narrates the horrors Carl Lee Hailey’s daughter had to endure during her rape. He describes every thing in brutal detail and he asks the jury if they can see the little girl in their minds.
This is when the lawyer delivers the quote.

jgw1
*You seem to be suggesting that accepting asylum seekers - people fleeing the most unimaginable hardships is a bad thing?

You seem to be suggesting that we should take all asylum seekers who fancy coming to the UK. These examples are certainly a "bad thing" -

March 2023 The Times
An Afghan migrant waiting in a French camp to board a small boat to the UK had already been deported from England after raping a 12-year-old girl, The Times can reveal.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rapist-return-uk-small-boat-migration-2023-7m6czvbfp

Sky News
Afghan man suspected of raping and killing girl, 13, in Austria arrested in UK. Rasuili Zubaidullah entered the UK on a boat of refugees and claimed asylum using a fake name
https://news.sky.com/story/afghan-man-suspected-of-raping-and-killing-girl-13-in-austria-arrested-in-uk-12407072

@ Clavinova do you think the UK should not be accepting asylum seekers?

I think we should accept a limited number of asylum seekers (outside specific schemes such as Ukraine/Hong Kong) - ideally those with skills or education, or women and children. I also think there should be a cap on numbers - the government have suggested 20,000 people per annum (outside specific schemes) but that number might be unrealistic. How many asylum seekers do you think we should accept per year?

SerendipityJane
It has been proven by example that Clav thinks whatever some papers say.

I pick up my free copy of The Times in Waitrose most days and tend to read The Guardian online.

I have this imagination that in real life they wear a woolly hat with deelybopper style quotes on either side. And then I take my meds.

I had to google deelybopper - I imagine you as an eco-warrior in a bed-sit.

Explained in the post you're quoting from.

What on earth has that got to do with this discussion? It was a one-off incident caused by a spat about repatriating Pakistan's former Prime Minister, subsequently resolved through normal diplomatic channels. It has fuck all to do with our immigration procedures.

You don't seem to understand that use of the barge isn't the issue, though the stupid money they're paying for it is an element. The issue is the living conditions on the barge, particularly the fire risk and the legionella.

Its fucking hypocritical after all they put us through with Covid lockdowns and restrictions There are ppl STILL being taken to court for Covid breaches FFS. Hypocrisy is off the charts

That didn't actually happen, did it? It's extremely rare for legionella to become established in domestic water systems because there is generally enough movement of the water to stop it. Routine testing doesn't happen. In the rare instances where legionella does get established because the property has been left empty for some time and the landlord hasn't taken the elementary precaution of running the water regularly and/or checking when also checking other systems, therefore, people only find out about legionella when someone catches it. In that event the landlord is very likely to be prosecuted.

Dumping chemicals in a domestic water system is dangerous and is not something the average plumber is able to deal with.

It wasn’t deliberate either…once the tests came back positive, they moved the people off the barge

It's a fundamental condition of the relevant procurement procedures that it be established that legionella is not present before we even agree to take delivery. They put people on the barge knowing that they had no idea whether there was legionella there or not, although they must have realised it was very likely given how long the barge had been unused. And they carried on putting people on it even after they knew about the legionella. They only stopped because other departments made a massive fuss, rightly.

Of course. No-one denies that legionella pops up all over the place. The fact that we know that is precisely why the relevant procurement procedures required that the barge be certified free of legionella before we even took delivery, let alone started putting people on it.

The report is, however, useful in pointing up how a responsible authority deals with finding legionella, which contrasts sharply with the Home Office's approach.

Is a child'd death less significant in your mind if it doesn't happen near UK waters?

Is a Spanish beach close enough for you? https://metro.co.uk/2023/07/18/spain-headless-baby-found-beach-died-migrant-boat-tragedy-april-19148306/

You are citing known criminal (and fraudulent) asylum seekers. @jgw1 asked you about genuine asylum seekers. Any danger of addressing that question?

One major problem with your proposal is that it breaches treaty obligations. How can we expect to hold other countries to their obligations if we won't comply with ours?

Given that net migration to the UK is currently between 300,000 and 400,000 people a year (and was over 600,000 last year) we have a long way to go before we can justifiably claim that legal asylum seekers are a genuine problem.

JanieEyre
You are citing known criminal (and fraudulent) asylum seekers. @ jgw1asked you about genuine asylum seekers. Any danger of addressing that question?

I gave a comprehensive answer in my post.

The issue is the living conditions on the barge, particularly the fire risk and the legionella

The legionella is being dealt with. The letter from the Fire Brigades Union was emotional and political e.g.
For more than a decade we have suffered from falling wages... Attacking asylum seekers will not build a single house, train a single nurse or pay anyone a decent wage - it is a technique for dividing working people against each other.

The Union have claimed the letter was not political - it quite clearly was - therefore how can we take their fire safety concerns at face value?

JanieEyre
One major problem with your proposal is that it breaches treaty obligations.

In what way?

Wll no, you didn't give a comprehensive answer. You cut and posted references to two irrelevant reports.

It is absolutely no answer to say "the legionella is being dealt with". The point is that the government's own procurement procedures required it to be "dealt with" before they contemplated putting anyone on that barge. They didn't comply with those procedures, thus putting people - including the non-refugees working there - in danger.

Do you think it is just possibly that members of the fire brigade know more about the risk than you do? I mean, it's terribly convenient to try to assert that they might not be telling the truth, but how about some hard facts? It's not as if the HO hasn't already demonstrated that it is cavalier with basic safety.

JanieEyre
Well no, you didn't give a comprehensive answer. You cut and posted references to two irrelevant reports

My references were not irrelevant at all if the men are crossing the Channel in boats. My answer to the second half of jgw1's post clearly covers the overall question - she repeats "accepting asylum seekers".

It is absolutely no answer to say "the legionella is being dealt with"

Your post implied that the barge would not be fit to live in at all (at some time in the future).

Jenny Harries [formally Chief Medical Officer for England and the head of the UK Health Security Agency UKHSA, which carried out the legionella tests] doesn't seem overly concerned here;

“This is quite a common finding, and it’s quite complex. Just finding legionella does not necessarily mean there is a significant risk to human health and it is primarily the responsibility of the operator or the manager of the premises or the services to ensure that that is fully managed.”

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/aug/14/bibby-stockholm-steve-barclay-ministers-only-told-of-legionella-three-days-after-test-results

Do you think it is just possibly that members of the fire brigade know more about the risk than you do?

I'm certain they do - but the letter was sent by the Fire Brigades Union - no different really than a letter from Mick Lynch representing his members.

I mean, it's terribly convenient to try to assert that they might not be telling the truth, but how about some hard facts?

However, the Fire Brigades Union didn't stick to the facts - and I'm not sure they've even set foot on the barge. They were clearly not telling the truth when they insisted their letter was not political - what has training nurses got to do with fire safety on a barge?

The point is that the government's own procurement procedures required it to be "dealt with" before they contemplated putting anyone on that barge.

Do you have a link? How do we know there wasn't a negative test 4 weeks ago/6 weeks ago? Do they test hotels immediately before use as well?

I see from the Guardian link above, that Labour have indicated they would use the barge as well - despite the Fire Brigades Union describing the approach as "cruel". Cruel Keir;

The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, meanwhile made an implicit admission that his party would continue to use facilities such as the Bibby Stockholm if it won the next election.

JanieEyre
One major problem with your proposal is that it breaches treaty obligations.

In what way?

Any danger of addressing that question? (to quote you).