Home Office spent £1,500 ‘redecorating’ migrant detention centre where children’s cartoons painted over

Cost revealed for works at previously ‘bright and cheerful’ Manston processing centre

The Home Office spent more than £1,500 “redecorating” a migrant detention centre where children’s cartoons were painted over.

A Freedom of Information request revealed the cost of works at Manston in Kent, where all asylum seekers arriving on small boats are detained for initial processing.

The facility, which became unlawfully overcrowded and saw a diphtheria outbreak last autumn, previously had murals of Disney characters including Anna from Frozen on the walls of its children and families unit.

Following a visit in February, the prisons watchdog praised the area for being “decorated in bright cheerful colours”.

But it emerged last month that the murals had been painted over by the Home Office, along with similar cartoons of Mickey Mouse and other characters at the separate Kent Intake Unit.

In response to a Freedom of Information request by a member of the public, the Home Office said the “redecoration” of reception areas at Manston had cost £1,549.52.

Immigration minister Robert Jenrick previously told MPs that there “was no financial cost to paint over the murals in the Kent Intake Unit”.

He claimed he ordered the move because they were not “age-appropriate”, after being accused of losing “sight of humanity” with his intervention.

“The cohort of unaccompanied children who passed through [the Kent Intake Unit] last year were largely teenagers and we didn’t feel the site was age-appropriate, but it does contain a range of support for children and infants,” Mr Jenrick told the House of Commons last month.

Murals in a children and family area of the Manston detention centre were painted over in July (HM Inspectorate of Prisons)

“Nothing about the decoration of sites changes the fundamentals that if someone comes to the UK we will treat them with decency and compassion at all times.”

Yvette Cooper, Labour’s shadow home secretary, said that painting over cartoons would not “deter” small boats, and accused the minister of trampling over “common decency towards vulnerable children”.

The Freedom From Torture charity accused the government of “losing sight of its humanity”, while Labour MP Stella Creasy compared the minister to a “cartoon villain”.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We do all we can to ensure children are safe, secure and supported as we urgently seek placements with a local authority. All children receive a welfare interview, which includes questions designed to identify potential indicators of trafficking or safeguarding issues.”