C of E priest: I got ‘ batches’ of asylum seekers for conversion
A FORMER Church of England priest told MPs he was regularly asked to conduct baptisms ‘in batches’ for asylum seekers looking to bolster their legal claims.
Reverend Matthew Firth revealed he would be approached to baptise six or seven ‘young males’ at a time.
He claimed that asylum seekers would arrive ‘in sizeable cohorts’ to request conversion, but disappeared after he insisted on active participation in church life.
Rev Firth, 41, a priest at St Cuthbert’s in Darlington, Co. Durham, said that he put a pause on religious conversions between 2018 and 2020.
He told the home affairs select committee: ‘Week in, week out, significant groups of – mainly Iranian and Syrian – young male asylum seekers were being brought to me in sizeable cohorts.’
‘Six or seven at a time, brought to me by people saying “these people need baptism”. Every two or three weeks there would be a batch.’
MPs challenged Rev Firth on figures that showed only 15 potential asylum seekers had been baptised in Durham in the past ten years. He said: ‘ There was a difference in the number of people brought to me requesting baptisms and the number of baptisms that happened.’
Rev Firth left the Church in 2020, and is now a vicar for the Free Church of England.
Critics say that by converting to Christianity asylum seekers can claim to be at risk of religious persecution if they are returned to their country of origin.
Former home secretary Suella Braverman said churches were ‘ facilitating industrial- scale bogus asylum claims’.
MPs also yesterday heard from the Bishop of Chelmsford who was quizzed on the Church of England’s guidance to clergy on assisting asylum claims.
Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani said that the guidance, drawn up in 2017, was being reviewed. She told the committee: ‘The Church is not infallible. We are a human institution and errors are made.
The Diocese of Durham has also rejected Rev Firth’s claims, saying it had seen no evidence to support them, and that seven of the 15 baptisms which may have been asylum seekers since 2014 were performed by him.
Rev Firth’s evidence came in the wake of the case of Clapham chemical attack suspect Abdul Ezedi, a convicted sex offender who successfully challenged his asylum refusal after converting to Christianity. MPs have said the judge who ruled that Ezedi should be granted asylum must release their judgment to avoid damage to public trust. Tory MP Tim Loughton called on the tribunal to ‘pull their finger out’ on what was a matter ‘of clear public interest’.
Ezedi was subject to a nationwide manhunt last month after he allegedly poured chemicals on his former partner and her children. His body was later found in the Thames.
After he was refused leave to remain in the UK by the Home Office, Ezedi appealed to the FirstTier Tribunal, and was granted asylum after his conversion to Christianity. He is believed to have been supported by the Baptist Church, not the Church of England.