How we try to check if they are children

THE Home Office has no fail-safe way of guaranteeing a child migrant is actually aged under 18.

Officials do not carry out medical tests, subjecting them instead to a series of rigorous interviews.

Once a person claims asylum here, initial interviews are conducted to gather information on identity, medical conditions and age among other criteria, according to Home Office guidance.

If a migrant does not have a birth certificate or other travel documents, a Home Office screening officer can certify them as a child based on their ‘physical appearance and demeanour’.

Unless they appear ‘significantly’ over 18, they should be ‘afforded the benefit of the doubt and treated as children’.

Officials will continue to attempt to collect more information to check their age.

The individual will then be age-assessed by the local authority. Social workers are told to ascertain the applicant’s family background, education and activities over the previous few years.

On medical tests, Home Office documents quote Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health guidance on age assessments by doctors, which says ‘age determination is extremely difficult to do with certainty because it is an inexact science where the margin of error can sometimes be as much as five years either side’.