“[Serco] has been awarded a £200m Home Office contract to run two immigration removal centres.”

“A court recently heard that a rape survivor at the centre was involved in an altercation with 11 Serco staff… The outsourcing giant has also faced a string of allegations of sexual misconduct towards female detainees by staff.”

“Pierre Makhlouf, assistant director at Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID), said: “We are dismayed that Serco continues to be awarded contracts to run detention centres in the UK despite obviously having failed to protect people in their custody in the past, including a string of sexual abuse scandals in Yarl’s Wood.”

“Rupert Soames, chief executive of Serco, said the firm had a “great deal of experience of caring for people in the immigration system both in the UK and internationally…”

“Immigration minister Kevin Foster said: “This contract is a major step forward in our programme of immigration detention reform…”