The BBC discovered that a "historic injustice" occurred when hundreds of members of the Windrush generation who were chronically ill and mentally ill were sent back to the Caribbean.
Formerly classified documents show that at least 411 people were sent back under a voluntary program between the 1950s and the early 1970s.
Families claim that they were torn apart, and some of them were never reunited.
The UK government declared that it was dedicated to reversing the injustices of the time.
"We recognize the campaigning of families seeking to address the historic injustice faced by their loved ones, and remain absolutely committed to righting the wrongs faced by those in the Windrush generation," a spokesman said. ".
Calls for a public inquiry into the repatriation policy have been sparked by the revelations, which are reminiscent of the Windrush scandal, in which hundreds of Commonwealth citizens, many of whom were from the Caribbean, were unjustly deported.
In the decades following World War Two, thousands of people moved from British colonies to the UK, including those who were sent back. After one of the first ships to arrive in the UK, the HMT Empire Windrush, they were referred to as the Windrush generation. The first arrivals' 75th anniversary will occur this year.
The scope of the policy has now been revealed by documents found in the National Archives by BBC News. The scheme may have been illegal, according to some experts, because not all patients had the mental capacity to consent to leaving.
One of those sent back was June Armatrading's father, Joseph. .
Joseph was British, just like the other citizens of the Caribbean who migrated to the UK following the war. He held a British passport, and his birthplace, St. Kitts, was still a British colony that was run solely out of London.
In 1954, Joseph and his family immigrated to the UK. They settled in Nottingham and had five daughters. However, he started having mental health issues in the 1960s and was given the diagnosis of paranoid psychosis. He was delivered back to Saint Kitts in 1966. Never again did he see his family.
June, who is currently 65 years old, claimed that her mother had told her and her sisters that their father had "abandoned" them.
She suffered "massive, big heartbreak" as a child because she was convinced her father didn't care about them.
However, a letter written by Joseph requesting to return to the UK so he could reunite with his family was seen by the BBC. About Joseph's subsequent events, little is known.
Additionally, government officials acknowledged in previously private letters that the process for repatriating Mr. Armatrading "was not correct.". The papers showed that he had unjustly lost his passport.
Ms. Armatrading was shocked when we showed her the letters.
"I'm furious. How dare they? It's upsetting, really upsetting, she cried. This man was weak, I thought. They failed to take care of the vulnerable people you're supposed to look out for. They simply abandoned him by leaving him. ".
Marcia Fenton was placed in foster care as a young child.
Sylvia Calvert, her mother, had been sent back to Jamaica and sectioned in the late 1960s because her father couldn't handle things alone.
Only after many years in Jamaica were mother and daughter reunited. Sylvia was still ill at this point despite being released from the hospital. 2007 saw her death.
Marcia is still curious as to what happened to her mother after returning to Jamaica. She only recalls spending some time at Kingston's Bellevue Hospital on the island.
Marcia told the BBC, "I was robbed of a mother by her being sent back to Jamaica.".
She requests a probe into how and why individuals like her mother were deported. She argued that no one who was mentally ill should have been repatriated. "The British administration ought to apologize. ".
411 chronically ill and mentally ill patients were returned to Commonwealth countries in the Caribbean between 1958 and 1970, according to documents analyzed by the BBC from the National Archives.
The number could be higher, though it doesn't seem like government agencies kept thorough records.
The process was typically overseen by the National Assistance Board, which served as the Department for Work and Pensions' predecessor.
Each patient was supposed to have "expressed a wish to return," according to government letters and policy documents found in the archives. Repatriation, according to them, should only be done if it would "benefit" the patients and if "suitable arrangements" had been made for their return.
It is debatable, though, whether patients in a vulnerable position could make such choices or whether such appropriate arrangements existed. According to a research paper published at the time, the Caribbean lacked "trained personnel and resources" for mental health care.
In order to avoid creating the impression that they were "actively trying to offload... those Commonwealth citizens for whom Britain had little use," British government officials were cautious.
Officials in Jamaica do not appear to have been persuaded by this. The UK hospitals were requesting repatriations "largely on the grounds of pressure on beds, or other hospital services," the Office of the High Commissioner complained in a 1963 letter to the British government.
The Windrush generation had the same legal standing as British citizens because they were "Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies" (CUKCs).
Although both the Labour and Conservative governments sought to limit the number of Commonwealth citizens from the Caribbean, Prof. James Hampshire of the University of Sussex claimed that this desire dates back to the first arrival of these citizens.
"The legislation passed during that time, in the 1960s and 1970s, was passed with the intention of restricting some types of migration while not restricting others. It was primarily directed at what was then known as "coloured immigration.". ".
It is debatable whether the practice of repatriating mentally ill patients is legal, according to Prof. Kris Gledhill, who previously served as a tribunal judge on mental health cases.
What you're doing, he said, is relying on a "voluntary choice" that, if the person's capacity to make that choice were accurately assessed, you would conclude that they lack it. ".
Hundreds of Windrush scandal victims were represented by immigration attorney Jacqueline McKenzie of Leigh Day. She remarked, "It's absolutely shocking that this was happening, the repatriation of the sick and mentally ill.
The destruction of lives. The state now owes it to the people's descendants to give them explanations and some form of redress. ".
Medical professionals who studied the effects of being sent back to the Caribbean discovered that it had a negative effect and that many wanted to go back to the UK.
Dr. Aggrey Burke, the first black NHS consultant psychiatrist in the UK, came to the conclusion in the early 1970s that it had not been in the best interests of patients with severe mental illness to send them from the UK to Jamaica's Bellevue Hospital.
He now claims that there was little interest in what happened to the patients, saying, "No one seemed to have an interest in what then? The next stage. ".
Dr. George Mahy, a different psychiatrist who practiced in Barbados in the 1970s, examined the records of about 200 patients who had mental illnesses and were originally from the Caribbean.
He discovered that nearly 52% had received advice from the UK to return, and in many cases they had received financial assistance from the UK government. Many of these patients, according to him, harbored regrets and wished to go back to England.
The wellbeing of hospital patients being detained under the Mental Health Act is of the utmost importance, a government spokesperson told the BBC. Since the time of these cases, the law has changed, and any repatriation must now be approved by an independent tribunal in order to be in the patient's best interests. ".
Joseph Armatrading has no surviving photographs. His daughter June recalls seeing a photo of him with her and her sisters at her Nottingham home, but over time, it was lost, according to June.
She is, nonetheless, adamant that her father's tale not be lost.
"The government still needs to provide an explanation for what happened to my father and to Joseph Armatrading; they've left us in the dark. ".
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