A DETAINEE who was pulled off last week’s deportation flight to Jamaica at the last minute is experiencing flashbacks triggered by the distress of the night, campaigners claimed yesterday. 

Out of the 50 men scheduled on the charter flight on February 11, 25 were still taken to the airport despite being granted a reprieve from deportation hours earlier. 

The flight from Doncaster airport went ahead, deporting 17 people. 

Detainees spoke of being held for hours in freezing vans on the way to the airport in chains and denied water and food, not knowing if they were going to be deported. 

Black Activists Rising Against Cuts’ co-founder Zita Holbourne told the Star that one detainee said he is now experiencing flashbacks from that evening. 

“What he’s described to me is PTSD — he didn’t use that term but he’s having flashbacks of being on that runway — because they were right up by the side of the plane, with security there and police with dogs,” she said. 

Ms Holbourne said other detainees are deeply distressed by the ordeal, as well as their families, who did not know if they had been deported for hours after. 

“It was chaotic the way it was done,” she said. “They had to wait to get to the airport before being told one by one: ‘you’re on the flight, you’re off the flight.’

“We had family members contacting us asking: ‘Has my partner, my son, my brother been taken?’ So the impact on family and friends is also horrendous.” 

At least 18 of those taken off the flight are now being held in Morton Hall in Lincolnshire. 

Many are from London or the south of England, making it more difficult for their families and young children to visit them. 

The detainees were taken off the flight thanks to a successful legal challenge based on a lack of working sim cards in Harmondsworth and Colnbrook detention centres meaning they were unable to access proper legal advice. 

However, campaigners have said that detainees in Morton Hall are still facing problems with their phone signal making it difficult to contact family and lawyers. 

The government has said that it is determined to challenge the appeal, branding all the detainees “serious criminals.” 

Antonia Bright, from campaign group Movement for Justice, disputed this, and told the Star that deportations are a way for the government to “show that they are being tough on immigrants.”