Premier Dr. the Honourable Natalio Wheatley says he is embarrassed about the prevailing situation at the Castle Maria Hotel regarding the constant escaping of immigration detainees.
The premier expressed this in his own words while explaining how his administration intends to address the worrying trend of detainees escaping from the temporary detention centre.
“I do feel embarrassed by this situation and I am disappointed. I would say that we have had continued persons escape and really in my view, no excuse for it”, he said.
“The steps we are taking we are going to be building a detention centre and of course we’re going to as well employ our own government personnel to be able to secure the premises when the detainees are there”, Wheatley added.
This is not the first time that Premier Wheatley has spoken about the need to intervene at Castle Maria.
Less than a month ago, in addition to affirming the government’s commitment to constructing a proper detention facility to serve the territory’s needs, Wheatley said that his administration was in active discussions to make immediate interventions at the site.
When questioned on the fruit of those discussions, Dr. Wheatley claimed that there have in fact been interventions made to beef up security at Castle Maria.
However, he lamented that these measures have not been effective, evident by three additional escapes being recorded at the facility since his previous statement on the matter.
“We did increase the security there. We did beef up the security there. Despite that, we have had some challenges still. I won’t say too many more details about it because of course it could be a legal situation but we did take some steps to beef up the security and despite those steps we took, the situation took place”, he said.