THE Home Office has deported suspected victims of trafficking and at least one person who arrived in Britain at the age of 13 on a charter flight to Jamaica, campaigners have claimed. 

The 2am flight today morning left with 37 fewer people on board than were originally due to be deported, following a series of last-minute legal challenges. 

Among those who won last-minute reprieves were reportedly victims of modern-day slavery. 

But charity Detention Action said that those who were deported included people who showed signs of trafficking, as well as those who had not received any legal help. 

One case highlighted was that of a young man who arrived in Britain 10 years ago at the age of 13. He was deported despite being a suspected victim of criminal exploitation and grooming as part of a county-lines drug gang operation. 

The man has three young children and is likely to be forced to sleep on the streets as he has no family in Jamaica, Detention Action said. 

Others on the flight were said to be direct descendants of the Windrush generation. 

Ahead of the flight, campaigners and politicians had made repeated calls for it to be cancelled, warning that it risked deporting people who had a right to be in the country like those affected by the Windrush scandal. 

But the government refused to back down and confirmed today that 13 people had been deported. 

A legal action on behalf of the children of one of the detainees failed before the flight. 

The judicial review was seeking to ground the flight until an assessment had been carried out into the impact on all the children who faced being separated from their fathers. Although the injunction did not succeed, the case continues. 

Detention Action estimated that had all 50 of the men been deported, up to 150 children would have been separated from their parents. 

The charity’s director Bella Sankey said: “This cowboy operation was stopped in its tracks by judges intervening to defend those whose lives are at risk in Jamaica. 

“But the tragedy of this tale is the many devastated children who have had a loving parent forcibly ripped from their lives without any consultation or being able to make their voice heard. This is child cruelty plain and simple and it will not stand.”

The Home Office claims all those on board the flight are “serious criminals” including murderers and rapists.

However Movement for Justice’s Antonia Bright said the vast majority of people it had supported were involved in drug-related crimes. 

“The stories behind how they’ve ended up in the crime is just dismissed because really the Home Office is only interested in brandishing the people simply as criminals in complete contradiction of understanding that there is racism through the criminal justice system,” she told the Morning Star. 

Home Office Minister Chris Philp said following the flight: “We will be working through these cases as quickly as possible.

“I remain committed to removing foreign criminals and anyone without a legal basis to be here to keep the British public safe – which will always be my number one priority.”