FORMER detainees will be among campaigners gathering outside Campsfield House detention centre in Kidlington on Saturday for a demonstration.

The Campaign to Close Campsfield holds monthly demonstrations outside the detention centre in Langford Lane.

Usually, there are about 20 people outside the gates, but organisers expect numbers to increase at the end of the month after detainees ran riot earlier this month.

American company GEO, which runs the centre, moved about 60 out of 196 detainees to other detention centres following the incident, in which a fire was started.

Bill MacKeith, a spokesman for the Campaign to Close Campsfield, said: "I couldn't say for certain that there will be hundreds of people there on March 31 because that takes a lot of organising, but there will certainly be more people there than we would usually expect, and that will include a number of former detainees.

"There are still more details which have yet to come out about the background to the recent incident and we are talking to detainees to try to find out more."

Retired civil servant Robert Whalley, who is conducting an independent inquiry into a disturbance at Harmondsworth detention centre, has extended his investigation to include the Campsfield incident.

The demonstration starts at noon and protesters are invited to bring musical instruments or saucepans "to make a cheerful noise".