Only ‘three of more than 60 people’ wrongly deported in Windrush scandal contacted by Home Office

HOME Office officials have only contacted three people out of more than 60 who may have been wrongly removed from the UK in the Windrush scandal, it emerged last night.

Home Affairs Select Committee Yvette Cooper said it was of "real concern" that it was taking so long and so few had been traced.

It came as officials continue to trawl through around 8,000 records dating back to 2002 of Brits who had been in the country lawfully for decades but may have been forced out.

Earlier this month it was revealed 63 cases had been earmarked for detailed investigation.

Half of the cases are categorised as foreign national offenders, while 31 were people subject to "administrative" removals.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid said those in the latter group were being "proactively contacted" through a specialist Windrush taskforce, if officials have contact details.

He said: "We have so far made contact with three and are asking high commissioners to assist where we do not have contact details.

"When we reach these individuals they will be invited to contact the taskforce."

The Home Office has come under pressure to state how many people have been held in immigration detention as a result of the Windrush fiasco.

Mr Javid added: "As with the removals exercise, this is a complex piece of work which involves manually examining thousands of cases in order to see whether there is anything on the record which suggests that someone could have been here before 1973 - likely to be a much smaller number.

"Officials believe that their initial investigations are likely to take between six and eight weeks."

The Home Secretary pointed out there are members of the Windrush generation who willingly retired to the country of their birth.

But Ms Cooper blasted: "It remains a real concern that only three of the 63 potential wrongful deportations and removals have been contacted so far, and that it will take a further six weeks for the Home Office to assess how many people may have been wrongfully detained."

Ministers faced a furious backlash over the treatment of the Windrush generation - named after a ship that brought migrants to Britain from the Caribbean in 1948.

The Sun revealed over the weekend that former Home Secretary Amber Rudd had been cleared of incompetence over her resignation during the scandal.

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