The Ombudsman for Prisons and Probation this week condemned the standard of design and construction at a detention centre where a riot broke out, saying that this contributed a great deal to the extent of the damage it suffered.

Stephen Shaw, who wrote the official report into the disturbance two years ago at the Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre in Bedfordshire, put the blame on flawed design and rushed construction.

The £74m centre, designed and built by contractor Amey in partnership with Group 4 GSL, was partly destroyed by detainees in February 2002. The contract was a traditional design-and-build with the Home Office as client.

Shaw slammed the building as “astonishingly flimsy”, claiming that it was not fit to hold the detainees securely or to contain them once violence broke out.

The report points to flaws in the construction of the building, including the positioning of the command suite in an area that was accessible by detainees. It criticises the corridor-style design, which prevented staff splitting the building into zones to control the disturbance. The report also questions the use of prefabrication methods.

In summary, Shaw writes: “Physical shortcomings in the design of the building made the management of a disturbance extremely difficult. I am critical that lessons do not appear to have been learned from earlier disturbances.”

The report blames the Home Office for giving the firms too little time to build the centre. The Prison Service Construction Unit is quoted as saying: “The contractor had been given a virtually impossible task.” However, Amey director Richard Entwistle told the investigation that it would not have signed up to the scheme if it had not considered it could be done.