Coroners, courts, regulators and inspectors have recorded what restraint does to the people it is used on. This casebook publishes those records as short, sourced case pages: what happened, what went wrong, and what it means for the people running the service.
Every entry states its confidence, what could not be verified, and where the source runs out. Where a case is still live, we hold it. Where a name cannot be justified, we do not print it. Publications are labelled as publications, because a national count is not an incident.
147 case entries and 47 publications.
Bound and gagged in her own home during a removal attempt
A 40-year-old woman died of asphyxiation after officers bound her and gagged her with tape. The three officers tried over her death were acquitted.
Pinned face down in an aircraft aisle during a removal
A torture survivor was held face down and subjected to a pain technique outside the approved manual by five escort officers. A High Court judge found serious assault…
Handcuffed to an officer for five hours while his heart failed
An 84-year-old man with dementia, declared unfit for detention and unfit to fly, died in hospital still chained to a custody officer.
PublicationThe inquiry that found an inherently dangerous restraint technique
A public inquiry into an immigration removal centre found force used inappropriately against ten detainees, an "inherently dangerous" technique used on four, and footage that had been there…
PublicationHandcuffs as the default in immigration detention
A national monitoring report found force in immigration detention applied for operational convenience, with one board reporting that nearly every hospital escort it saw during 2024 and early…
Pinned in a seat before take-off
An Angolan man restrained face down in his aircraft seat said he could not breathe for at least ten minutes before he lost consciousness.