Beardy McBeardface

Beards, bullshit and bias in immigration and asylum cases

I speak like a child / I look like a child
Through dancing eyes / I wish more for you
I give more to you / Than jealous replies

Tim Hardin

Gather round, children. It’s story time.

There once was a boy who was born in a land called Eritrea. As a toddler he went with his mother to Addis Ababa, in Ethiopia, but she died ‘at some stage in his teens’. Having been looked after for a period of time by two of her friends, the boy was eventually taken by them to Sudan, and then Libya, where he was kidnapped and made to work on a construction site by people traffickers. After a few months his ‘ransom’ was mysteriously paid and he was set free and made his way to Tripoli.

There, he lived with two men called Muhammad and Younas for a year and four months, during which time they lived on ‘bread and coca-cola’. Eventually, in December 2023, the three of them boarded a boat to Italy, and were picked up by a charity rescue ship and taken to Milan. The boy was given papers by the Italian authorities, but deliberately threw them away after being told to do so by Muhammad and Younas. The three of them then made their way to France, hiding on a train, and then to Belgium. They slept rough there for a while and then made several attempts to enter the UK.

On the first such occasion, on 17th February 2024, the boy was picked up by UK Border Force in the area at the port of Dunkerque around the Channel Tunnel. The agents recorded his name, and that his date of birth was 14th February 2005 - in other words, that he was 19 years old. They then turfed him back into France proper.

On the second occasion, on 20th February 2024, he was again stopped at Dunkerque when attempting to stow away with five other Eritreans on the back of a lorry. His name (a different one, this time) was again recorded, and his date of birth was taken down as 14th February 2006 - i.e., he was recorded as being 18 years old.

On the third occasion - and, as we all know, the third time is the lucky one - the boy ‘emerged from a HGV lorry at Folkestone’ on 21st March 2024 and claimed asylum. Here, his name (again a different one) was noted down, along with his date of birth. This time he said that his date of birth was 14th April 2007, making him not quite 17 years old. But the officer who spoke to him thought he was much older. He noted down an assessed date of birth of 14th April 1996 (i.e, he thought the ‘boy’ was almost 28 years old). Two Home Office members of staff also had a look at the boy and said that his physical appearance and demeanour suggested he was ‘significantly over 18 years of age’.

The boy - I continue to refer to him as a ‘boy’ advisedly - was sent to a ‘hotel for adult asylum seekers’ in the London borough of Hillingdon. He was interviewed by two social workers from the local council who concluded he was ‘likely aged between 22 and 25’. This assessment had to be withdrawn because the manner in which it was carried out did not fully comply with guidelines for age assessments, but the boy was then referred to the National Age Assessment Board (NAAB), a Home Office agency which makes decisions in situations such as this when the age of an asylum-seeker is not clear on arrival.

Two social workers at NAAB met with the boy on five occasions, along with an interpreter, and so on. They decided his date of birth was 14th February 2005 and that he had therefore been 19 years old when he had entered the country. They acknowledged that case law had determined that an individual should have the benefit of the doubt in age assessments, but here there was no doubt. They concluded as follows:

The principle of the benefit of the doubt can be used in age assessment cases when assessors struggle to reach a consensus on the age of an individual. In [the boy’s] case, the benefit of the doubt was not considered to be relevant given his own account to the UK immigration officers, the assessors [sic] view, and key professionals working with him who consider him to be an adult.

In the meantime, the boy had been given refugee status on the grounds of having been trafficked. He presumably therefore has leave to remain in the UK anyway. But, you see, if he had been a child when he entered the UK, the boy could also benefit from the provisions of the Children Act 1989 as a ‘former relevant child’ pursuant to s. 23C, usually referring to somebody who has been adopted or was previously in care, but increasingly also meaning unaccompanied migrant minors. This would entitle him to certain goodies, such as:

• Assistance with training and education costs

• A personal advisor and ‘Pathway Plan’

• A higher education bursary funded by the local authority to the tune of a statutory minimum of £2,000

• An apprenticeships care leavers’ bursary of £3,000

• Special exemptions from certain Universal Credit restrictions

• A potential discretionary ‘setting up home allowance’ of at least £2,000

• A potential discretionary council tax exemption

• A smorgasbord of other potential discretionary ‘extras’ depending on the local authority in question, like birthday/festival allowances, a TV licence, and travel concessions such as the London Care Leaver Oyster photocard

Naturally, the boy therefore applied for judicial review of the decision to assess him as having been born on 14th February 2005. And sure enough, in the recent decision of Judge Gaenor Bruce in the Upper Tribunal in R (BSB) v Secretary of State for the Home Department, despite appearances the boy was found to in fact be a boy after all. He was declared to have the date of birth of 14th April 2007, meaning that he was just shy of his 17th birthday when he arrived in the country. And he could be treated therefore as a ‘former relevant child’, and entitled to the relevant benefits, after all. What a happy ending!

Now, there are three things to comment on here. In ascending importance, and ascending levels of likely aneurysm inducement, these concern beards, bullshit and bias. I will now deal with each of them in turn.