Asylum seeker ‘schoolboy’ is grown man, Home Office concludes

From the Telegraph and The Daily Mail 

A Home Office investigation has found that an adult asylum seeker posed as a schoolboy and was placed in a classroom of 15-year-olds.

He was first pictured on social media by a fellow pupil with the message: “How’s there a 30-year-old man in our maths class?”

A new inquiry has been launched to try to establish how the man, described by pupils as looking 30 years old, managed to spend six weeks as a Year 11 pupil at Stoke High School in Ipswich, Suffolk. The former pupil, originally from the Middle East, now faces being deported after the official report established he was over 18. 

  • Investigators who looked at his case again were so confident he was over the age of 18 they didn’t need a medical examination or teeth x-ray;
  • Immigration officials who failed to dispute his age when he arrived in the UK face an investigation;

The man, known as Siavash, can now be identified for the first time.

Some parents were so concerned that they removed their children from school. The scandal prompted the school to remove the man, believed to be 6ft 1ins tall. His height is actually the least of the hints as to his age – I know of a few gangling 16 year olds who have reached 6ft. Its the features and the pupil’s observation of his demeanour that should have been picked up immediately. 

Although the Home Office refused to reveal what age he is now believed to be, it is understood from sources that he is being treated officially as an adult asylum seeker.

Rumours had been rife in Ipswich that the man was even married and had children.

The Home Office spokesman added: “When there is doubt about an individual’s claim to be a child, the individual will be referred to a local authority’s social services department for a careful, case law-compliant age assessment and they will be treated as a child until a decision on their age is made. . . In the absence of documentary evidence, Home Office staff are only able to treat a claimant as an adult if their physical appearance and demeanour very strongly suggest that they are significantly over 18 years of age – and where two officers have reached this conclusion independently.

“The threshold is set deliberately high so that only those who are very clearly over 18 are assessed as adults.”

Stoke High School, whose principal is Caroline Wilson, has also been accused of failing its children with critics saying his true age should have been ‘spotted from day one’.

Desmond Newby, 51, kept his daughters Jamie, 15, and Alicia, 13, out of class while the man was there and said today: ‘All I wanted in the first place was for him to be removed. I’m ashamed both for the school and the Government for allowing this to happen. They have both failed to protect our children. The teachers should be sacked . . . If the kids knew he’s the age he is, how come the school didn’t know? How come the school that’s supposed to take care of our children have let this happen? They’re supposed to safeguard them. . . 

 ‘The children are worried because being in that position, he could have been anyone. If the Home Office is supposed to be checking the immigrants when they come into the country, how come they just turn around and look at someone and say yes, they’re 15 years old?

‘We had to have proof to get our kids into Stoke High School. . . It took a load of children to turn around and tell the adults there was something wrong with that man.’  

Mother-of-two Justyna Kujawska, 34, also from Ipswich, added: ‘The teachers are to blame. He should have been told to leave as soon as he got there. At first I found it funny but then it’s worrying that he managed to stay at the school for so long. How did he get away with that?’

Kelly McNamee said today: ‘You can’t tell me that the teachers never had any suspicion…He’s clearly an adult’ 

A few years ago, before ‘safeguarding’ became such a stick with which to beat anyone working with children all the while ignoring the Rape gangs, and before I was aware of the scale of those gangs, I overheard a group of teachers chatting on the train. There were several ‘over-age’ pupils at their school pretending to be younger to get the free education, and they were giggling at one young man’s efforts to hide his beard, and admiring what they perceived as their ‘respect for the value of education’. In which case they should have been directed to one of the many colleges of Further Education who teach mature students who missed out when teenagers. I suspect the head-mistress and teachers knew full well that he was a mature adult. They have spent an entire working life around school pupils. 

 

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