A YARL’S WOOD detainee revealed yesterday how treatment by officers had improved since a campaign to shut the detention centre started.

Juliet Akao’s comments followed a hundreds-strong protest outside the infamous all-female “immigration removal centre” on Saturday, in which an outer ring of wire fencing surrounding the jail was torn down by human-rights campaigners. “The treatment is better, and even the way [the staff] are behaving towards us is better,” Ms Akao told the Star.

The protest, organised by campaigns such as Liberty and Movement for Justice (MFJ), “felt very supportive” to detainees.