Thursday 29 July 2010

Surprise, Surprise...

...the UK Border Agency's own Professional Standards Unit has found that the agency's Cardiff office is not 'institutionally racist' or has a pervasive culture of abuse following a series of allegations made by ex-employee Louise Perrett in March this year. Nobody will face disciplinary action for actions apparently because they decided that there was nothing wrong with testing the veracity of boys from Africa who claimed they had been forcibly conscripted as child soldiers by making them lie down on the floor and demonstrate how they shot at people in the bush; or that singing "Umbongo, umbongo, they kill them in the Congo" in reference to a Congolese woman's asylum case; or that the fabled 'grant monkey' was not used as a 'badge of shame' when it was placed as a badge of shame on the desk of any UKBA officer who approved an asylum application.

Despite the report's conclusion "that Ms Perrett misinterpreted its significance [and] it was accepted that her misconception of it could have been felt by others and as such it was unwelcome", it was "accepted that [the monkey's] subsequent removal from the office was correct"! So it was removed from the office just in case someone might get the idea that the 'grant monkey', when placed on someone's desk after they had given someone leave to remain, was in no way connected and, despite its name' it wasn't intended as a 'badge of shame'. Maybe the fact that there was "no evidence to corroborate Ms Perrett's claims" was down to the PCS union's advice not to co-operate with the investigation?

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