DEPORTEES are being tied up for as long as 14 hours on Home Office-chartered flights that are “reminiscent of the days of slavery,” a watchdog report reveals today.

The findings follow an HM Chief Inspector of Prisons (HMIP) probe into a night-time Operation Majestic flight from Birmingham to Nigeria and Ghana on March 26.

One man was found to have been tied up for 14 hours and deported to the Nigerian city of Lagos despite telling British border guards that he had swallowed a blade.

He and another eight people on the plane, which was carrying a total of 19 deportees, were found by inspectors to have been tied up.

The flight took place almost exactly two years after Stansted 15 activists grounded an Operation Majestic deportation jet at the Essex airport on March 28 2017.

With security surrounding these operations remaining tight, inspectors found that each deportee had been flanked by three private security guards from the outsourcing giant Mitie.

Some guards wore “military-style camouflage trousers,” which managers had previously said “were no longer permitted,” according to the report.

Diplomats from the Nigerian and Ghanaian embassies in London also travelled on the flight, provoking outrage from campaigners.

Antonia Bright from Movement for Justice said the British government viewed migrants as “easy targets” who had been betrayed by their embassies.

“The co-operation of Nigeria and Ghana authorities will certainly make their diaspora even more of a target for detention and removal, and will be felt as the betrayal it is,” she said.

Deportees told HMIP they were being separated from their children, some of whom had to be “placed in foster care.”

Two of the women said they were “fearful for their safety” and several stressed that they had “little or no connection with the countries to which they were being removed” after living in Britain for many years.

Inspectors found that female deportees who were collected from Yarl’s Wood detention centre in Bedfordshire “resorted to keeping money in their underwear as they were not permitted to retain any bags.”

Last-minute legal intervention saved one man, who had wrapped a razor blade in tissue, from deportation. 

Another man had a “blade in his mouth” and was being shadowed by six G4S guards in full protective gear and carrying a riot shield at the Brook House detention centre until his lawyers won him a reprieve.

The report also refers to a detainee who “had been found hanging by a ligature and had threatened to harm himself with broken glass” who was nonetheless put on the deportation flight.

HMIP was especially concerned by the use of waist restraint belts, “where detainee’s arms are pinned to their sides.”

One woman tied up in this way tried to “bang her head against the seat in front of her” during the flight and had to be “calmed down” by a Nigerian diplomat.

She spent 10 hours with her hands bound to her side and only had the restraints removed at 2.15am.

Bail for Immigration Detainees assistant director Pierre Makhlouf told the Star: “Home Office escorts continue to use waist restraints that are reminiscent of the days of slavery.

“The people being deported include people who have lived here for many years, often from childhood well into adulthood.”

HMIP boss Peter Clarke warned: “Waist restraint belts were still being used on co-operative detainees for extremely long periods without them being given a chance to demonstrate compliance.

“It is unacceptable that this problem continues to occur despite promises of remedial action.

“Improvements are still necessary to promote detainee privacy and dignity at a time of stress for people being removed from the United Kingdom.”

The Samaritans charity can be called free of charge on 116-123.