A Severely Autistic Man Faces 'Potentially Life-Threatening' Deportation

Osime Brown, a severely autistic man from Dudley in the West Midlands, arrived in the UK from Jamaica at just four years old. In 2017, at the age of 18, he was sentenced to five years in prison for the theft of a mobile phone. He now faces potential deportation to the country he hasn’t been to since he was a child.

Brown was charged under the joint enterprise law, wherein a person can be found guilty of a crime that they failed to stop, rather than for directly committing the crime.

The act has not only been found to disproportionately target Black men, but also people with learning difficulties. The law rests on the assumption that parties present to a crime fully comprehend how an incident will play out – something that may not be true for some people with autism and other learning difficulties, such as Brown.

Brown’s mother, Joan Martin, tells VICE News that a witness who was a friend of the accuser told the court that Brown did not steal the mobile phone, but this was ignored.

With a charge longer than 24 months, Brown’s indefinite leave to remain has been automatically revoked. The Home Office understands his imminent deportation to be “conducive to the public good”, as defined by the 2007 UK Borders Act.

With no friends or family in Jamaica, and no recollection of his time there, Brown is to be transferred from prison to an as yet unconfirmed immigration detention facility on the 7th of October, and then deported to the island.

Brown’s family are concerned about the lack of care within detention centres, as investigations such as the Shaw Report depict the lack of healthcare provisions for detainees, especially those with complex pre-existing conditions and mental health problems, like Brown. A report by Medical Justice found that a number of deaths that occurred in UK detention centres were avoidable, with many caused by a lack of healthcare provisions.

Brown’s mother has a number of concerns about the management of his health in detention. “He has a heart monitor where people have to help use it, so it can send information over to the hospital,” she says. “[What if] they don't have that facility in detention, they don’t have healthcare… and with his autism as well, he cannot go there.”

Access to mental health services in Jamaica is low, and the healthcare system is likely to be unfit to provide Brown with the continuous and multifaceted support he requires. Psychologist John T. Hall was commissioned by Brown’s mother to conduct a review of her son. He described Brown’s current treatment in prison as “negligence”, by which he was “appalled”.

As for his deportation, Hall says: “It would be an act of pure folly to do as the Home Office propose, as the consequences for Osime would not only be life-changing in a very negative direction, but potentially life-threatening.”

Since his arrival in the prison system, both Mr Hall and Brown’s mother have noted that his pre-existing mental health disorders have worsened. In a recent assessment, Brown wrote, “I am worried about the voices in my head. Also my mental state.” His arms are now covered in both fresh and ageing scars from self-harm, and he has been labelled a suicide risk.

Despite a well documented list of support needs, he has allegedly been abused and bullied throughout his time in prison. His mother says he was not taken to hospital for a whole day after breaking his hand, with guards telling him, “It will still be broken in the morning.”

He was also told to “fuck off and self-harm, you self harmer”, according to his mother, who adds that Brown takes statements at face value, and so in that instance self-harmed, believing he had been instructed to do so. He has also been called racial slurs by prison officers.

A spokesperson from The Ministry of Justice said: “We do not recognise these allegations and all prisoners have access to healthcare when they require it.”

Speaking of her and her family’s immigration to the UK, and her subsequent career as a mental health nurse in the NHS, Martin says, “I thought I was coming to this country to help myself and to help others to get a better life. But now, it’s torture.”

Mr Hall’s report describes Brown’s local educational authority as “negligent”. Brown was never given an assessment of his needs, nor a statement of special needs or an Education, Health, and Social Care plan, meaning no additional support was given to him when it was needed.

“They’ve abused him from school onwards,” says Martin.

When he was 18, Brown wanted more freedom from his mother. He was unhappy with her rules disallowing him from being out until 11PM – hardly an uncommon complaint for an 18-year-old. But with his undiagnosed autism and related communication issues, when Brown told social services, they saw this as a formal request to be released from his mother’s care. Brown was placed into care without his mother’s consent and, she says, without a court order. He was passed through over 13 homes in just one year.

Nadia Whittome MP is one of those campaigning against Brown’s deportation. She says: “Osime’s case is the result of a string of failures of our education, social care, justice and immigration systems. The idea of deporting an autistic young man to a country where he has no support and no family links is as absurd as it is cruel.

“His story has shone a light on the institutional hostility and ignorance faced by neurodivergent people, and the inhumanity of deporting people who arrived in the UK as children. I urge the Home Office to let Osime stay in the only country he calls home."

The Home Office has refused to comment on the basis of ongoing legal proceedings.

@bethanymrd