Novara Media, August 2020
“We know we need to be a more compassionate organisation… we know that the things that we do affect people’s lives in a really profound way and that we can’t afford to get them wrong in the way we did in Windrush.”
These are the words of Home Office permanent secretary Shona Dunn, who on 19 August, participated in a Zoom call with other Home Office officials and around 50 victims of the Windrush scandal. The monthly online meetings – so-called ‘engagement events’ – are intended to “raise awareness of the Windrush Compensation Scheme and the work of the Windrush Taskforce”. Victims, however, say they are unhelpful.
“We keep saying it’s a waste of time,” says Glenda Caesar, a victim of the Windrush scandal, which saw hundreds of Commonwealth citizens denied legal rights and wrongly detained and deported under the Home Office’s hostile environment policy…
Sophie Hemery 