From deadly bacteria to bedbugs, rotten food to fire concerns – the Bibby’s 18-month stay in Portland has been both dramatic and tragic.
I remember tracking the tugboats as the barge first arrived in Falmouth for a refit in the summer of 2023, before broadcasting live alongside the huge grey rectangle at sea, as it floated into Dorset.
We were given access to film onboard the Bibby shortly before the first asylum seekers arrived.
Eight-metre-high spiked metal fences surrounded it – police guards at its entrance.
The Home Office spokesperson on the ground refuted my claims that this was like a floating prison.
Onboard the rooms were basic, functional, fine for a night I thought – but not for months on end.
We were there on the Monday in August as the first 39 men arrived – but just four days later we were back at the gates of Portland Port, as a coach evacuated them.
The legionella bacteria outbreak inside the Bibby’s water system was the first of a litany of problems and it was clear the barge was going to be a controversial symbol for all that was wrong with asylum policy.
“I can guarantee you most of the people in the barge took depression tablets, most of us, even me,” Omar tells me.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
An asylum seeker who spent six months aboard the Bibby Stockholm tells Sky News it was ‘a bad experience’
The asylum seeker from Yemen was housed on the Bibby for six months – he’s now in the North East, still awaiting a decision on his future.
“To give you the real idea, it is worse than being imprisoned. I haven’t been imprisoned in my entire life, but now when people ask I say ‘yeah, I’ve been on the Bibby…
