The shadow immigration minister says the government was wrong to house convicted criminals at immigration detention centres.

Damian Green's criticism comes after 14 offenders are still at large after fleeing Oxfordshire's Campsfield Detention Centre after a riot.

The convicted criminals, who were among 26 who fled, had served their sentences and were awaiting deportation.

Border and Immigration chief Lin Homer denied the centre's regime was unsafe.

"We've recently looked at the regime in Campsfield and we are putting in place a number of improvements with the centre operator," said Ms Homer, chief executive of the Border and Immigration Authority.

"There's no suggestion that the regime is unsafe but there's always room for us to learn from incidents and we and the centre operator remain very committed to learning those lessons and implementing any changes and improvements that we can."

But shadow immigration minister Mr Green said: "We need immigration detention centres as part of the process of removing people who have no right to be here, but what we shouldn't be doing is mixing up immigration offenders with other criminals and that's where the big failure lies."

Meanwhile, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, Donna Covey, told BBC News of her concerns on Monday.

"There's a very volatile mix of people in these detention centres and as I say they include many asylum seekers who've committed no crime.

Continued....