It often happened in the photo suite, the modest upstairs room within the Avocet accommodation wing of the Yarl's Wood immigration removal centre. The suite was designed with the best of intentions, as a place where asylum seekers could take smiling snaps of themselves to send to faraway families.
Instead, it allegedly became a clandestine venue for sexual relations between officials working on behalf of the UK state and some of society's most vulnerable individuals. Officials perhaps chose the room for prosaic reasons. There was no CCTV. Its windows had curtains to thwart prying eyes.
Alternatively, according to one detainee's witness statement handed to the police and seen by the Observer, women were taken for sexual acts to either of the centre's cinemas; or occasionally the toilet beside the gym.
Some new arrivals were targeted almost instantly, according to 23-year-old "Tanja" – not her real name – who was detained at Yarl's Wood from 10 August 2012 to 20 March this year. Tanja told the Observer how younger women were preyed upon. "There was a lot of flirting. Within two or three days the officers start to come on to them, touching the younger ones. They started touching my bottom.
"They made 'hand job' signs, saying, 'Wow, you look nice.' They choose younger girls, the most vulnerable. They do whatever they want."
A letter from lawyers Birnberg Peirce, representing Tanja, to the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, which provides independent oversight of detention complaints, raises the "particularly vulnerable" nature of the Yarl's Wood sex victims, often psychologically troubled and desperate to stay in the UK.
The letter says that detainees such as Tanja "may initially respond to male sexual interest because of their extreme vulnerability and/or hope that a relationship may offer them a way out of their difficult immigration status".
The detail contained in her witness statement is shocking; it describes, among other acts, apparently non-consensual oral sex. One employee locked the door and took out his radio earpiece before kissing her on the photo suite's sofa. Another exposed his genitals and told her how much he loved her.
Bedfordshire police are investigating allegations that some sex acts took place without consent.
After she made a complaint, Tanja alleges that there was an attempted cover-up, although Serco, the firm that runs the centre for the Home Office, rejects this. In testimony to Bedforshire police dated 21 August, she states that she was pressured to withdraw her initial complaint of inappropriate sexual behaviour to the Yarl's Wood management.
She alleges that she was "bullied" by guards inside the centre. She was self-harming at the time, cutting her arms with the jagged edge of a drinks can.
"Some of the officers said I was lying, they started giving me the cold shoulder. I didn't feel comfortable leaving my room for weeks. I felt very isolated and started self-harming," she says, displaying forearms streaked with the smooth white lines of scar tissue.
Her statement alleges that guards at Yarl's Wood "started being horrible" and attempted to force her to withdraw the complaint. She names at least two other guards, not involved in the sexual acts, who she claims pressured her to withdraw her complaint.
"They told me that they are going to take me to court about making the complaint because there is no evidence." A female officer, she alleges, also warned her that she would be sent back to prison – she had previously spent 20 months in jail at Styal in Cheshire – if she refused to withdraw the allegations.
She made the first complaint of inappropriate sexual behaviour to the centre's management on 1 December 2012 and another two days later.
At the time she had spent more than 110 days inside Yarl's Wood, enduring several failed attempts to deport her to eastern Europe. Within days of her making the complaint the Home Office issued another notice for her removal, this time to Kosovo. Tanja rang the Kosovan embassy and told them what had happened. The embassy cancelled the flight.
Tanja had arrived in the UK aged 10 with her Roma family on false documents and does not know her true nationality. The family was granted leave to remain in 2006. Tanja's conviction for a street robbery in December 2010 meant she was sentenced to deportation as a foreign criminal.
During the investigation into her allegations, repeated attempts were made to have her deported. Germany, Italy and France were contacted. Attempts were made to deport her to nine different countries.
Tanja's case is far from unique. A 29-year-old from Pakistan was allegedly repeatedly sexual harassed by a Serco employee inside Yarl's Wood between November 2010 and January 2011. She alleged a male nurse exposed himself, and groped her on three separate occasions. Although her allegation was unsubstantiated, the Home Office told the trial into the claims that the evidence was "very finely balanced". Serco has yet to disclose its initial investigation into the claims.
When she registered an official complaint into the allegations the Home Office issued a notice for her removal. Similarly, when Tanja made her own complaint she mentioned another woman who she said had been sexually involved with an officer. "The day after [making a complaint] she was removed to Romania," states Tanja's witness testimony to police.
Birnberg Peirce's Harriet Wistrich is convinced the sole reason Tanja's case was taken seriously was because she was unusually determined and sufficiently canny to piece together guards' movements using CCTV and provide details such as officers' birthmarks.
Eventually the UK Border Agency admitted that there was "sufficient evidence to suggest that [names of three officers] did behave in the unprofessional way that you allege". But the authority's professional standards unit, which has responsibility for investigating allegations of misconduct by UKBA officials or private contractors, stresses that the alleged victim did not indicate to its investigator that the sexual contact with guards was "anything other than consensual". The following month, March 2013, Tanja was released from Yarl's Wood and remains on bail.
Is there a pattern of sexual misconduct inside Yarl's Wood? All three officers who targeted Tanja are alleged to have had sexual relations with other detainees. One is accused of sexual contact with four detainees. Another, according to Tanja, boasted of a six-month relationship with a woman since deported to Pakistan. The third officer was said to have had relations with a Spanish detainee. In 2010 a 30-year-old woman became pregnant by an officer in Yarl's Wood.
The Home Office, in a Freedom of Information response, says it has received four complaints "of a sexual nature from detainees" relating to contractor staff since 2008, although no details are offered.
Wistrich describes the figure as the "tip of the iceberg", stipulating that women are too fearful to testify or are deported before their case is sufficiently examined.
A Serco spokesman said: "At Yarl's Wood we have strict procedures for dealing with any allegations of sexual intimidation or inappropriate behaviour. Any allegations are fully investigated and any sexual intimidation or inappropriate behaviour will not be tolerated."
