People born in Britain and those who have lived here since childhood have been returned to jail after being wrongly selected for deportation, a watchdog report says today.

Charles Clarke was sacked as Home Secretary last year when it was revealed that more than 1,000 foreign prisoners had been released from jail without being considered for deportation. The Home Office rounded up many of those who had been released.

But Anne Owers, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, said: “The trawl was so undiscriminating that it included some British citizens [who are not deportable in any circumstances], Irish and European Economic Area nationals [who are deportable only in limited circumstances] and those who had committed only minor offences, but had lengthy residence and family ties only in the UK.”

Ms Owers said that among them were those responsible for small children, people who could not be deported and others held on inaccurate information. Others rounded up and returned to closed prisons were offenders in open jails and people released on licence whose behaviour had been exemplary.

One prisoner who had lived in the UK for 36 years and was married to a British citizen, with British children and grand-children, was suddenly moved from an open jail and then moved between four different closed jails in the space of three months.

Ms Owers said that the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND) was unable to cope with the sudden increase in the volume of work because of the absence of proper systems.

She added that the scandal led to an increase in inmates’ self harm and overcrowding in jails.

Ms Owers said: “Foreign nationals, suddenly and unexpectedly threatened with deportation, found it impossible to find out what was happening to them and were held in prisons and immigration removal centres far past their sentence expiry dates — even those who were desperate to return home. One stark indicator of their predicament was the increased prevalence of self-harm. Foreign nationals reported feeling suicidal, due to the uncertainty of their position.”

She added: “Of particular concern was the fact that immigration officials, operating at a distance and on paper, often seemed unaware of the human cost of this.”

Ms Owers said that the IND database was often not up to date and contradicted information on prison files.

An examination of prison and immigration case files found that obtaining a response from the directorate about its dealing with prisoners was a major problem, with unanswered requests for information, action or decisions.

Monthly reviews of detention were often missing, uninformative and repetitive.

Ms Owers also said that immigration removal centres had faced increasing instability, with a large population of former prisoners being held. Lin Homer, the director-general of the IND, said: “I welcome this report, and I am pleased that it recognises some of the improvements that have been made to the system.

“Public protection must be our first priority. That means foreign national prisoners are not released without consideration of deportation.”

Paul Cavadino, chief executive of the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, said that the report highlighted the “worst kind of administrative shambles”. He added: “These prisoners’ distress has been worsened by the Government’s regrettable knee-jerk decision to create a legal presumption in favour of deporting foreign national prisoners.”

Last month the Government’s tough new approach to deporting foreign national prisoners was watered down when ministers agreed that Irish nationals would largely escape being removed because of Britain’s close ties with the Irish Republic.

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