5,000 ‘child’ migrants unmasked as adults

Half of those challenged in past decade found to be over 18

ALMOST 5,000 refugee ‘children’ who have come to Britain in the past decade have been found to be adults.

Home Office figures reveal there have been 11,121 disputes over the ages of child asylum seekers in that period, with 4,828 – almost 45 per cent – found to be over 18.

Their treatment as ‘children’ would have left councils and local taxpayers facing a care bill of tens of millions of pounds a year.

The statistics come amid rising concern that Britain’s generosity towards genuine child victims of war and terror has been abused, following questions over the apparent age of some of the child migrants arriving from Calais this week.

Conservative MP Philip Davies told an emergency Commons debate yesterday that the row risked undermining public confidence in the asylum system, saying: ‘People only have to see the pictures of the so-called child refugees to see that many of them are not children.

‘A large number of my constituents have contacted me to say how angry they are

‘Being taken for fools’

that we are being taken for fools, taken for a ride, and our generosity is being abused.’ The MP’s warning came as:

Screens were erected around an immigration centre as another busload of migrants claiming to be children arrived;

One of this week’s ‘child’ migrants was found to be an adult whose fingerprints were already on a UK database;

A foster couple said they were asked to house men masquerading as children;

Court documents revealed supposed child asylum seekers were noted to have ‘deep broken voices’, grey hair and moustaches;

A poll found overwhelming support for dental checks to check their age.

Hundreds more migrants are expected in the next few days under an agreement to reunite child refugees with family in Britain.

Tory backbencher Mr Davies said the Government had a duty to ensure the children it accepted were genuine youngsters. He warned: ‘If somebody claims to be 14, do we just accept it and send them to a local school, with all the obvious safeguarding issues that will be involved if they were actually adults?’

The emergency debate in the Commons was scheduled following a week-long row over the apparent age of the migrants arriving from Calais. One, wearing a hoodie, appeared closer to 40. Another was reportedly found to be on the UK’s biometric database, meaning he has tried to enter Britain before, has a criminal record or could have been logged as an adult on an asylum programme in another EU country. It is understood he is not significantly older than 18.

Immigration Minister Robert Goodwill insisted the Government carried out age assessments, including using physical appearance and demeanour. But he ruled out dental checks as ‘inaccurate, inappropriate and unethical’.

A YouGov poll of 1,608 people found 55 per cent supported dental checks, with 26 per cent against. The UK is one of only four EU countries not to use medical checks to verify child asylum seekers’ age, along with Ireland, Cyprus and Slovenia.

The remaining 24, plus Norway and Switzerland, use doctors, dentists or psychologists to catch adults pretending to be children. A report by the European Asylum Support Office says hand, wrist or collarbone X-rays, dental X-rays and – in some cases – genital inspections are used.

Mr Goodwill admitted one migrant in ten approaching Home Office staff in Calais claiming they should be allowed into Britain as a child turned out to be an adult. Adults cheating the system could be unwittingly housed with children in care and sent to local schools, he said, because refugees required to undergo age checks are treated as a child until their assessment.

Councils pick up the bill for all costs for child asylum seekers, including putting them in foster care or children’s homes and providing them with support, health care and education. Such support costs an average of £50,000 a year per child, according to the Local Government Association.

But Home Office statistics revealed that last year almost two-thirds of the ‘child’ refugees questioned about their age were found to be over 18. Of the 574 asylum applicants whose age was disputed, 371 were deemed to be adults. If unchallenged, council care for those ‘children’ would have cost taxpayers more than £18million a year. Since 2006 there have been 11,121 age disputes, of which 4,828 were found to be adults. Their care as children would have cost more than £241million a year.

Councils say the cost of genuine child refugees has already left them facing a huge cash shortfall.