Still Good for Something

The Crown Prosecution Service has used the Olympics fiasco as an opportunity to send a clear and unequivocal message to G4S; namely that however much corporate humiliation may be necessary if the Home Secretary is embarrassed, the occasional killing of deportees is a very different matter. Although no-one would accuse G4S of failing to provide enough personnel in the case of Jimmy Mubenga, it seems their attitude to proper training was as relaxed as ever. Since the care and welfare of its human cargo is naturally a top priority for G4S, the company worked together in exemplary harmony with the Home Office and the Metropolitan Firearms and Headbangers' Club to promote the story that Mubenga had "become unwell", and it was left to the Guardian newspaper to interview witnesses who said that Mubenga had complained of breathing difficulties while the G4S custodians were incentivising his co-operation. Whistleblowers inside G4S later testified that the company's own staff had repeatedly warned that the level of force used in such cases was potentially lethal; but it appears the company didn't care. In that, at least, the Crown Prosecution Service has certainly borne them out.