Charity apologises for interpreter claim
A CHARITY apologised yesterday for falsely claiming a ‘child refugee’ was an adult interpreter.
TACT, the UK’s largest fostering and adoption charity, sparked a frenzy by peddling the untruth about the Afghan ‘man in blue’ seen arriving from Calais.
With wrinkles around his eyes and stubble on his chin, the unnamed asylum seeker’s photograph this week sparked widespread doubts he was truly a child.
The suggestion he was a Home Office translator helping officials at Croydon immigration centre was repeated unchallenged by the BBC and caused a storm on Twitter. But yesterday the Home Office debunked the myth by confirming the man was not a translator.
Face-recognition software written by Microsoft, which offers an unofficial ‘fun’ guess at someone’s age, rated the man as 38. But when his picture appeared on the front of newspapers on Wednesday, TACT tweeted: ‘This is a picture of an adult interpreter working for @ukhomeoffice.’
Meanwhile, BBC Radio 4’s World At One announced in its top headline that charity workers believed the photo did not show a migrant. George Gabriel, of another charity, Citizens UK, went unchallenged when he told the programme: ‘We think one of the photos is actually a translator accompanying the children.’
The false suggestion quickly gained attention on Twitter, prompting users to complain about ‘lies’ in the Press – egged on by BBC pundit Gary Lineker, who has 5.5million followers. Feminist campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez wrote: ‘That’s an interpreter, not a refugee.’ She later admitted her mistake.
By contrast the Daily Mail, one of the newspapers to use the photograph, had conducted extensive checks before publishing it.
Tory MP David Davies, who faced an outpouring of bile after suggesting migrants should have dental checks to verify ages, said: ‘These charities have been caught out peddling false claims to suit their purposes, and the BBC should be ashamed of itself for repeating these claims without checking them. My fear is that any adult posing as a child will quite possibly be placed in a foster home or classroom with real children.’
A TACT spokesman said: ‘With regard to a recent tweet by TACT questioning the status of an individual male in a photograph at Calais, our information was from a credible source. However, if the male is indeed a migrant and not an interpreter, TACT regrets any concern caused.’
The BBC declined to comment on criticism but said it had reported claims as allegations, and reported the Home Office’s confirmation that the migrant was not an interpreter.