On August 20 1997 there was another mass protest [at Campsfield], triggered by the early morning removal of two West African detainees. One of them was ill, resisted and woke everybody with his cries of pain. The detainees who saw his removal thought he was being strangled, and demanded to know why the two were being removed. Eventually nearly all of the detainees were outside in the courtyard protesting and displaying placards saying they were not criminals. Group 4 donned their riot gear, numerous police and extra guards were brought in, and, so the government claimed, £100,000 of material damage was caused by detainees. The next day Mike O'Brien, Home Office immigration minister, issued an inflammatory press statement headed 'BURNING BOOKS - IN A MOMENT OF MADNESS', ignoring the fact that library facilities were burned by one individual who was never identified by the authorities. 'The detainees', he said, 'destroyed their own facilities. ... The disturbance was firmly quelled and the police are now investigating whether to bring criminal charges against certain individuals'.

The government was clearly anxious for exemplary punishment, hoping this would deter future protests. Thirteen people were arrested. In the event, none of them was charged with starting a fire, although they were associated in the minds of many people with images of burnt buildings and smashed facilities. The charges were for violent disorder; they were later upped to riot, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years. Two lawyers told a meeting in Oxford, called to organise a Campsfield Nine Defence Campaign, that an officer at Banbury police station where police were taking statements said to them 'the charges were going nowhere' until they received a phone call from Jack Straw. Charges against three Caribbeans and one Lebanese boy were later dropped without explanation. The remaining nine were all West African male asylum seekers, picked by Group 4. Yet 100 or so people of many nationalities and both sexes had protested. The process was a lottery, in which nine young West Africans were being scapegoated. Mike O'Brien nevertheless told demonstrators outside Campsfield that he confidently expected that the Nine 'would all go down'. Both before and after the trial, O'Brien repeatedly praised Group 4. Shortly before the trial the government announced it had renewed Group 4's contract, and O'Brien went to Campsfield to deliver an Investors in People award to Group 4. During the trial defence lawyers told members of the defence campaign that they had clear indications from the prosecution that they were looking for a way of dropping the case but were under pressure to continue.

The case took ten months to come to trial. During this period, in Reading and Feltham Young Offenders Institutions and in Bullingdon prison, four of them made suicide attempts. Over half took anti-depressants. Four of them had been severely tortured by the Nigerian military regime from which they fled to find refuge in Britain, two have refugee status, two have Exceptional Leave to Remain, and three were teenagers. Members of the defence campaign visited the Nine in Bullingdon and Reading prisons and called for the charges to be dropped. They had little faith in the British justice system. The case might have hinged on the possible prejudices of the jury, who could have chosen to believe either the West African defendants or their white Group 4 accusers. Potential defence witnesses were nearly all fellow detainees, too scared to give evidence, unlikely to be believed if they did, and liable to deportation; the Home Office did in fact deport several potential witnesses. Most of the defendants were stuck with the solicitors who had represented them, or failed to do so, in their immigration cases. Supporters convinced some of them it was worth changing lawyers, and struggled with the administrative obstacles imposed by the prisons in obtaining letters and signatures from them, only to find that Judge King in pre-trial hearings refused the transfer of legal aid. He made an exception in one case. One of the Nigerians in Bullingdon prison, who was first on the indictment, decided to complain to the Law Society about his lawyer. He was allowed to transfer to Birnbergs and Nigel Leskin, who obtained refugee status for him at his second try, and he was then released on bail. Leskin worked on the case more than full time thereafter. Together they spent many hours in Banbury police station looking at film from the 42 surveillance cameras in Campsfield, returning with yet more evidence that Group 4 was telling lies, which Leskin and his counsel Henry Blaxland then used to devastating effect in court. Without them, the outcome could well have been different.

The trial at Oxford Crown Court started on June 1 1998 and collapsed 17 days later. Nicholas Jarman, QC for the prosecution, said the case 'was based mainly on eye witness statements' by Group 4 guards. 'No prosecution properly conducted', he said, 'could or should invite a jury to convict on that evidence'. The prosecution's abandonment of the case came shortly after one of the Nine left the dock in acute desperation (the last Group 4 witness had, yet again, claimed to have 'recognised' him, this time carrying a 'heavy weight bar', although he had mentioned him in none of his three police statements), and a 17-year-old defendant had collapsed in uncontrollable sobs. The judge then directed the jury to give a verdict of Not Guilty, which it did with apparent relish. The jury consisted of eight white men and four women. None of them looked as though they might remotely belong to what Mike O'Brien on Radio 4 castigated as 'the extremist liberal chattering classes' who oppose Campsfield. Group 4's behaviour during the trial caused the jury to laugh in disbelief. After the trial collapsed, some of them spoke to protestors outside the court. One said quietly: 'Who should have been on trial was Group 4, not them'.

The court heard Chief Immigration Officer John Graham and 16 Group 4 witnesses, including Centre Manager John Jasper. These, the prosecution told the court, were all except two of the eye witnesses to be called. The prosecution had little video evidence it could use. Defence lawyers, in turn, had no need to produce any wider political defence. One by one, the witnesses were demolished. Over and over again, they admitted they might have been wrong or that they had told lies (an 'undeliberate lie', said one of them). Repeatedly they claimed to have 'recognised' defendants whom they had previously mentioned in none of their statements. Asked how they recognised them, they said it was through meal duties, or playing sports. 'Playing sports?' asked one defence lawyer. 'Yes'. 'Playing football?' 'Yes'. 'But my client never plays football, or any sport'. John Graham, the senior immigration official at Campsfield, claimed in his statement to the police to have 'recognised' at an incident the previous evening two of the defendants and one of the two detainees who were removed, and to have known them 'from my work at the centre'. In court he said, instead, that he had asked Group 4 for the names of 'the three most vociferous'. He said he 'could not understand his mistake', and also that he thought he had ordered the removal of one of the defendants. Tim Allen, former supervisor, who claimed to have been hit with a dumbell by one of the defendants, was shown a video by defence lawyer David Bright, acknowledged that the defendant would have had to be on it if he had hit him, picked out one of the detainees and then had to admit it was not him, yet continued to maintain that he knew the defendant had hit him.

Witnesses repeatedly contradicted themselves. John Jasper, Group 4 manager, who said he was previously chief superintendent in the West Midlands police force, was asked about notices recommending respect for detainees and avoidance of racial abuse, said they were displayed in corridors but was unable to say where, and finally admitted that he did not know of any that were visible to detainees. Jane Essery told the prosecution she felt 'fearful' and 'panicky'. Henry Blaxland produced the transcript of a statement she had made to Group 4 management in which she said: 'I felt very calm, actually'. Her response was that she had 'never heard that tape; I never heard it would be used in evidence'.

Other Group 4 guards invented lurid stories. Caryn Mitchell-Hill said she had been alone in a corridor when a defendant took her by the shoulders and said 'Where are you going white bitch?'; 'I put my knee up, aiming for the groin area. In all honesty, I don't know whether I made contact'. Shown a video of herself at the same time in a different area with two other guards, she refused to identify herself though she identified the other two, surmised that she might have been another guard, finally admitted it must have been her but then suggested it must have been another day; 'at no point did I end up in the dining room area', she insisted. Various stories were told by different guards about Chris Barry, a 20 stone guard who collapsed in a corridor. He was said to have had a plastic bottle full of a chemical substance thrown at him, or been hit on the head by it, or not to have been hit at all, or to have fallen as he was being dragged through a door by a colleague. Barry himself said his shirt was soaked by a chemical and torn, that he was repeatedly hit and punched, and that he was 'concussed'. Videos showed him a few minutes later walking along in a clean and dry shirt, and then on a roof. Tim Allen, filmed on the roof with him, nevertheless continued to deny strenuously that Chris Barry had been on the roof.

Group 4 admitted to doing some damage themselves. Two of them, Mo Stone (stand-in supervisor) and Paul Bean (now a prison officer) admitted they had hit detainees with their batons on the head (although they had aimed for their arms as they were trained to do). Stone said he had not sought to discover who he had hit or whether the person was seriously hurt, had not made a report and that: 'I don't regret doing it, but I regret that it happened'. Paul Bean said he had drawn his baton because he had been hit by a dumbell and was 'scared'. In his police statement he had said that he drew his baton before he was struck. John Allen, supervisor, was questioned about the 'Control and Restraint' techniques used in the removal. Asked whether the detainee was held by the neck, he said 'No'. The defence then produced a video of the removal which showed the detainee being held by the neck. John Allen said: 'Like everybody who passes their driving test, they don't do it perfectly every time. ... It was not text book'.

Group 4 did some material damage too. Mo Stone was asked by David Bright whether he personally had smashed a telephone in the Ladies' Day Room. 'I did not'. Asked whether if witnesses gave evidence that he had done so, he would call them liars, he said: 'I will openly admit that I did take one of the phones apart. I was worried that detainees would communicate with the outside world. ... Some of them might have got back into the building, they could be used as a means of communication'. He did not tell the police he had done this. Told he had not dismantled the phone, but smashed it, using his baton, he said he used the baton 'to pull the cable out of its socket'. Four of them were 'trying to do it'. Later Terry Morley admitted he had 'smashed the handset off the telephone' because detainees were using it. Asked why there was no reference to this incident in his police statement, he shrugged. Asked why he thought photographs were taken of the damage, he said it was 'as evidence of what damage was done'. 'By whom? Detainees?' 'Yes'. 'Did it enter your mind to tell the police about the smashed telephone in case there was any doubt who did it?' 'No'. David Bright showed a copy of a letter written to campaigners on behalf of the home secretary, which said, explaining the decision to prosecute detainees: 'All the pay phones and other telephones were ripped from the walls'. He suggested that Group 4 might have done other damage as well. (Other detainees have given graphic descriptions of Group 4, for example, using their heavy riot boots to trample on washing machines in the women's areas).

The spectacle of Group 4 in court had a notable effect not only on the prosecution, but also on the judge. Judge Morton Jack initially made disparaging remarks about the detainees. In refusing to accept that one of the defendants, who had been held in Reading Young Offenders Institution, was 17, he said the defendant had 'told lies'. When detainees' lawyers asked for all of them to have hearing aids, he said he detected 'an element of fashion catching on'. His early decisions went against the defence. He refused to order the withdrawal from the jury's bundles of photographs of the fire damage to Campsfield, although lawyers argued that, as none of their clients was accused of this damage, to show it was prejudicial. He refused to accept Henry Blaxland's argument that, if the removal of one of the detainees could be shown to have been carried out unlawfully, this would be relevant to the defence. He said he would be strict on extraneous matter but allowed John Graham to make derogatory remarks about detainees who 'tore up their documents' and 'make applications in two or three names', yet refused to allow barrister Frances Webber to refute what she called his 'inflammatory and inaccurate statements'. He ruled that a minor must come to court from mental hospital, heavily drugged and with an escort of two nurses, refusing to accept legal arguments by Frances Webber that this was inhumane and within his power to prevent, and only agreeing to discharge the jury in his case four days later, after the hospital refused to send him to court and he had given the prosecution the opportunity to seek a second medical opinion. Yet, as the case went on, the judge's attitude changed. By the end, clearly irritated by Group 4, he was intervening to help lawyers to clarify the lies and contradictions in their evidence.

After the Nine's acquittal, five of them were transferred to Rochester prison, which they found hard to bear. After much pressure from their supporters and from the media, and two more suicide attempts, all of them were eventually released from Rochester on temporary admission. But they are left in limbo, their claims undecided, and still under threat of deportation. The brutal response from the home secretary, in a letter to campaigners over the signature of Graeme J Kyle, was that the trial 'simply interrupted the arrangements for the removal of those who have no claim to remain in the United Kingdom. Now that the trial has been completed, the removal of those who have no further basis to remain will continue'. After the perjuries and ignominy of Group 4 in court, and after the suffering inflicted by Group 4 and the British state on innocent people, ministers apparently intended to carry on business as usual, with no apology or compensation for the Nine, and no action against Group 4. Group 4 still has its contract to run Campsfield. Its staff have not been disciplined, sacked or even moved elsewhere. The Campsfield Nine Defence Campaign called for all the Nine to be freed and granted refugee status or Exceptional Leave to Remain, for the resignation of Mike O'Brien, for an apology and compensation from Jack Straw, for criminal charges against Group 4 and the scrapping of its contract. So far Mike O'Brien has been moved to another job. Lawyers have embarked on claims for damages for malicious prosecution from Group 4 and the Home Office. In notable victories, they have won their case in the High Court that John Quaquah, one of the Nine, should not be deported by the Home Office while he is suing the Home Office and Group 4, because the case was of sufficient public importance and the Home Office had not taken adequate account of Quaquah's human rights. In another High Court judgement Mr. Justice Turner said that 'if the conduct of the Group 4 officers both during the incident of unrest itself as well as their conduct in giving unreliable/false evidence was established, then it satisfied the description of having been "wicked"'.

The authorities' heavy-handed action did not have its intended result. Shortly after the trial ended, the detainees at Campsfield protested again. Announcing their action, hunger strikers at Campsfield put out the following statement:

We've come to UK seeking shelter from injustice, hoping to get back our right to live full lives, just like you do. The right that has been taken away from us, back in our home countries. Maybe some of us have overstayed, or entered Britain illegally. But we didn't do this for ill purposes. We are not criminals, we are the victims. English people have acquired incredible fortune due to their pious nature. Why not share some of it with us. Give us a chance to prove ourselves. We don't need much.

Some of us have families here. They need our support and love. Why lock us up like animals, separate from our wives and children. We did not commit any crimes.

The hunger strikers' spokesperson, a Nigerian opponent of the military regime and a pastor, was removed to Rochester. Three months later he got refugee status.