Inside one man’s botched deportation: seven flights, two swallowed batteries and a staggering bill for the UK taxpayer

Omar is married to a British woman, has a British son and was given a single non-custodial sentence nine years ago. Nonetheless, the Home Office was determined to deport him – whatever the cost

A year ago, Omar was living in the UK with his British wife and was determined to be a positive, consistent presence for his 10-year-old son, a British citizen from his first marriage. Omar is devoted to his child and has always been committed to guiding him to adulthood.

But today, Omar, 40, lives in Egypt, separated from his family, thanks to an extraordinarily determined, turbulent and expensive campaign by the Home Office to remove him from the UK. (Omar is not his real name.)

This campaign included eight months in detention at a cost of nearly £150 a day, about £36,000 in total; periods in solitary confinement; increased staffing, so he could be guarded exclusively and kept alive for long enough to deport him; two private jets that had to be cancelled at the last minute and a third that finally took him to Egypt; medical staff for the flight; and legal costs to fight a high court challenge to Omar’s removal by his lawyers, which the Home Office successfully defended. While the Home Office has declined to say how much it has cost to remove Omar, a conservative estimate suggests a bill to the UK taxpayer of hundreds of thousands of pounds.

So why was the Home Office so insistent on removing him – and how can the enormous cost be justified? It would make more sense, perhaps, if Omar were a violent criminal and habitual offender, but in fact he has only one conviction, from August 2017, for which he was not given a custodial sentence. The probation service deemed his risk of reoffending to be low. His removal was what the Home Office describes as an “administrative removal”, rather than a deportation, reflecting the relatively minor nature of his offence.

When I speak to him, Omar is struggling, desperate and unable to imagine a positive future. But just over a decade ago, before he came to the UK, life was good.

“I ran my own business in Egypt,” he says. “I was working with tourists in Sharm el-Sheikh, a job I loved doing. I can speak several languages and was able to converse with the visitors in English, Russian and Italian.” He earned decent money and had a nice car and a good relationship with his family.

Then he met an English woman who was visiting Sharm el-Sheikh and they started a relationship. She became pregnant, they married in Egypt and he agreed to join her in the UK in 2016. He entered the country on a visitor visa – he also had an EU visa – but later became an overstayer. The relationship failed in 2017 and he says he went through a “crazy” period, which lasted for about a month. He behaved in a way that he says was uncharacteristic and that he believes was a reaction to the failure of his relationship.

“I liked to be healthy and was very into fitness,” he says. “I met some people at the gym I was going to who gave me all sorts of drugs. I had never taken any drugs before, but they gave me everything – alcohol, cocaine, cannabis, mushrooms.”

One day, he says, while under the influence, he got on the bus and fell asleep. “I took off my pants, but have no recollection of doing this. The CCTV footage shows me leaning against the bus window, sleeping without my pants on. I didn’t approach anyone or touch anyone.”

In July 2017, as a result of that single incident, he pleaded guilty to one count of exposure and one of engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child. He was given a nine-month suspended prison sentence and a sexual harm prevention order was issued.

After his conviction, the Home Office initially gave Omar permission to work. He got a job in a car wash and ended up managing it. He met his second wife when she got locked out of her house in his neighbourhood. “I saw her sitting on her front doorstep, she told me what had happened and I tried to help her. We became friends and then started a relationship. We got married in 2021. She is a great person – I love her very much.”

But then his life started to close in around him. In 2022, his permission to work was withdrawn and he was told to regularly attend a Home Office reporting centre. These are packed with security guards and those who report there never know if they will be allowed to go home or will be taken straight to an immigration removal centre.

His life changed most dramatically when the Labour government came to power in 2024. Officials became determined to remove him from the UK, seemingly at any cost. “I had to go and report every month. I never missed one reporting session,” says Omar. “Then, on 18 September last year, when I went to report, immigration officers came forward and arrested me.”

He was taken to an immigration removal centre near Heathrow airport and given a ticket back to Egypt for 30 September 2025. “A team came to take me to the plane,” he says, shuddering.

He resisted, so he was put into a waist restraint belt and handcuffed. When he was forced on to the plane, the pilot refused to take him, worried that a disruptive passenger could pose a danger once the flight was under way. Omar was returned to the detention centre. He says he was deeply traumatised by the use of force against him.

“I didn’t want to leave my son,” he says. “Had it not been for my son, I would have left the UK the first time they asked me to leave. I was suffering from depression and some of the custody officers felt sorry for me and kept telling me to calm down. I felt I was living in a nightmare. Whenever I heard the key turning in the lock of my cell door, I thought they were coming for me again and I started shaking.

“They came for me a second time and, once again, I couldn’t stop shaking. I resisted being removed this time, too. By now, I had got into the habit of standing near my cell door, just watching and wondering when it would open. Even when officers unlocked my door when they weren’t trying to remove me, I was so scared of what might happen. I spent time in the detention centre healthcare unit because my mental health was so bad. I was given sleeping pills and sertraline for my depression. The third time they tried to take me to the airport, I was too distressed to sleep for 48 hours beforehand and was in a very bad state.”

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According to the government’s Adults at Risk policy for immigration detainees, he was designated to be at level 3 – the highest level. This means that professional or medical evidence shows that a detainee is at risk and that a period (or continuation) of detention would be likely to cause harm. Despite this, the Home Office continued trying to forcibly remove Omar, placing him in segregation for periods of up to eight days before flights.

“Before one deportation flight, I had saved up a lot of sertraline and took it,” he says. “I told the guards what I had done. My heart and my brain felt so bad from taking so much of this medication. I told the Home Office I would only return to Egypt as a dead body, because I didn’t accept the idea of leaving my son. Once again, the pilot refused to take me on the plane.”

The more times the Home Office tried to remove him, Omar says, the more his mental health deteriorated: “The thought of never seeing my child again was too much. The fear was building up inside me.”

After four failed removal attempts on scheduled commercial flights, the Home Office decided to book Omar on to the weekly private deportation flight to Albania. The plan was to have Omar board the flight from London to Tirana with the Albanian deportees and, after depositing them in Tirana, have the plane carry on with just the deportation escorts, the cabin crew and Omar to Egypt. The Home Office has not disclosed the cost of this “bolt-on” private flight.

Assuming he would once again be placed in segregation in the days before the flight, he acquired a lithium vape battery, which he hid. He took this with him into segregation. “When they came to take me to the plane, I swallowed the vape battery in front of them,” he says.

Omar knew that swallowing the battery could be lethal. Medical professionals treat such incidents as a life-threatening emergency, because the batteries can perforate the oesophagus, stomach or intestines. “I wasn’t worried about the battery killing me,” says Omar. “I didn’t care what happened to me. My brain is damaged, my soul is damaged, by what the Home Office has done to me. My wife is damaged, my son is damaged by all of this. Why should I care what happens to me? The Home Office don’t care what happens to me. I felt that there was no space for me in this life.” He was taken to hospital immediately and his flight was cancelled.

Despite knowing the risks of the bolt-on flight, the Home Office made the same arrangement again. For a second time, Omar managed to conceal and swallow a battery while in segregation. “The guards saw me put something in my mouth and threw me to the floor. One of them put his knee in my back. I could feel the battery in my throat. I couldn’t speak and couldn’t breathe. They weren’t sure if I had swallowed the battery or not, but I could feel it in my stomach.” The flight was cancelled.

Once again, Omar was placed in segregation and guarded around the clock. His mental health deteriorated. “I started to see eyes, ghost eyes, everywhere. Many different pairs of eyes were watching me and following me,” he says.

Before the seventh attempt to remove Omar, he managed to conceal a razor blade in segregation and cut himself. This time, there was a private jet waiting for him, with medics on hand to accompany him on the journey. The Home Office did not cancel this flight. Despite injuries from cutting himself, Omar was taken to a private airport and flown to Egypt on 29 April 2026.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “The public rightly expect to be protected from sex offenders and this individual has already been deported.

“We have removed or deported nearly 70,000 illegal migrants and foreign offenders since the 2024 election. We will not allow disruptive behaviour to prevent us removing criminals and those that are in the UK illegally. We make no apology for the additional steps it proved necessary to take to remove this individual.”

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The case raises many questions. Omar underwent repeated health assessments between 28 October 2025 and his removal from the UK, sometimes by the Home Office’s own detention centre psychiatrist. In October, this doctor said Omar was experiencing “acute stress reaction and adjustment disorder in the context of his removal directions”. A second doctor said he was “at high risk to himself”, with detention and removal found to be significant triggers for suicidal feelings. In March, he was again assessed by the detention centre psychiatrist and found to be in an “acute mental health crisis”, but nevertheless deemed “fit to fly”. Shortly afterwards, he swallowed a battery for the second time and his flight was cancelled.

Why did the Home Office spend so much money deporting a man who had committed a non-custodial offence nine years earlier, was not considered likely to offend again, has a British wife and child in the UK and was diagnosed as being seriously mentally ill, with the threat of removal seriously exacerbating his mental illness? How was he able to swallow two vape batteries and conceal a razor blade while being heavily guarded in segregation? The Home Office has declined to answer these questions.

The Home Office contractors who guarded Omar in immigration detention were from the outsourcing company Mitie. When asked if there had been any failures on Mitie’s part to prevent Omar from swallowing the batteries and concealing the razor blade in his mouth across three enforced removals, a Mitie spokesperson said: “We do not comment on individual cases. However, there is no evidence of wrongdoing or a breach of procedure by our colleagues.”

Omar says he is struggling since being forcibly removed. The circumstances of his return have made him feel ashamed to reconnect with his family. “I was deported in my detention centre clothes and spent my first five nights back in Egypt sleeping in a mosque. I feel shame about everything and I am hiding in a room a friend is letting me stay in for the time being. I don’t have money to rent a place and am continually thinking about killing myself.

“My son lives with my ex-wife, so I don’t know if I will be able to see him again. I don’t have the money to pay for my mental health problems to be treated in Egypt. I’m having flashbacks about the things that happened to me in detention. If I’m asleep, I wake up startled by a sudden noise.

“I used to have a great life. I was a good person and I always tried to help others whenever I could,” he says. The Home Office “has sucked everything out of me. I would never have resisted being removed if it was not for wanting to stay in the UK so I could be involved in my son’s life. All I wanted was to be around for him until he reaches the age of 16 or 17. I have one question for the UK. This is the country that built human rights for the world. What happened?”

• In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123. In the US, you can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

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