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Original poster

Grown men pretending to be children

315 replies

Happypie · 05/11/2018 08:47

AIBU to be very worried that safeguarding has broken down in England. I have worked in several schools in London where some of the newly arrived “children” were grown men. We have complained to social services and they admitted that the pupils were blatantly men but there was nothing they could do.
These men are being put into classes and foster homes with actual children.
We do not allow adults without DBS checks to have unfettered access to children unless they pretend to be children.
Head teachers hands are also tied. The only way to change things seems to be through parent complaints like in the story below. This is not safeguarding. www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-suffolk-46070239

OP posts:
OP posts:
kaytee87 · 05/11/2018 08:50

We had a guy in his 20s or 30s in our school pretending to be a teenager. He was obviously found out and he basically just wanted schooling as he hadn't had any in his country of birth.
Clearly it is not great though.

kaytee87 · 05/11/2018 08:52

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/man-32-posed-as-fifth-former-for-year-1601748.html%3famp

Before my time but I remember the scandal well

kaytee87 · 05/11/2018 08:53

Completely mixed up the reason he was there though, maybe that was someone else

SputnikBear · 05/11/2018 08:55

Atrocious. I’d remove my child from the school. Perhaps if enough people did that the authorities would address the situation.

Cheeeeislifenow · 05/11/2018 08:58

There's no evidence he is in his thirties on that link.. it has been reported to authorities. Who are dealing with it. I think your op is a little inflammatory, unless I am missing that this is a regular thing?

Hadenoughofallthis · 05/11/2018 08:58

I suspect that this story is just the tip of the iceberg.

And what good would removing your child from the school do? Apart from fucking up their GCSEs? These kids are in Yr 11 - not a good year for changing schools, if you could even find a place in another school, where there might quite likely be another adult posing as a child.

silkpyjamasallday · 05/11/2018 08:59

Why are these men going into schools though? Surely they could do an access course at a college or similar, or is it because they've come into the country pretending to be 15/16 in the first place and no one has challenged them? It's absolutely insane that this can still happen nowadays, safeguarding is being slowly dismantled in front of our eyes and we can seemingly do nothing about it. Complain and you're written off as a bigot.

Hadenoughofallthis · 05/11/2018 08:59

There's no evidence he is in his thirties on that link

Yeah, that's the line the local authorities pulled, too. Meaning he (and many others) are getting away with it.

AnneElliott · 05/11/2018 09:01

It's definitely a big issue. When I worked in immigration I'd have men older than me trying to pretend they are children. And I was aware of some shocking safeguarding failures too.

AnneElliott · 05/11/2018 09:02

The kids seriously at risk are the children of the foster carers, specifically the girls.

Cheeeeislifenow · 05/11/2018 09:05

Wow I had no idea. I just find it difficult to rely on media as a Source of evidence.

TigerDrankAllTheWaterInTheTap · 05/11/2018 09:06

Is this another case where people have been afraid to speak plainly for fear of being branded a racist or a bigot? Surely it ought to be fairly straightforward for a doctor to establish roughly what age a person is. They seem to manage it quite well with corpses, so it must be easier with a live person.

As for safeguarding, we do indeed seem to be in an era where there are lots of competing rights and the right of young girls (and boys) to be kept safe from predatory adults or other young people comes bottom of the list. It's shameful.

Cheeeeislifenow · 05/11/2018 09:06

But the thought that they are predatory straight away is quite a leap.. I would first be assuming they are trying to gain an education.. yes in an underhand way admittedly.

AnneElliott · 05/11/2018 09:09

It is difficult to prove their age as they get a dodgy doctor to agree with them, and the only way to biologically disprove it is to analyse bones via an X-ray (unethical) or to do the same with teeth.

And yes I imagine people are afraid to speak out for fear of repercussions. But it's well known as an issue by those who work and volunteer in the sector.

Hadenoughofallthis · 05/11/2018 09:10

I'm sure they are trying to get an education, but there are other ways that don't involve posing as a child to get into a school. Colleges, for a start.

TigerDrankAllTheWaterInTheTap · 05/11/2018 09:11

Nobody is saying, or should be saying, that all migrants are predatory, any more than all males are predatory. Safeguarding, as I understand it, is supposed to work on the premise that some people are predatory, and as we can't tell by looking at people who is and who isn't, we take precautions, such as DBS checks for people working with vulnerable groups, segregating sleeping quarters by sex for people over the age of puberty and so on and so forth. We don't give a free pass to any group, no matter how hard their lives have been to date.

Hadenoughofallthis · 05/11/2018 09:12

Why is having an X-Ray or visiting the dentist unethical? I did both last week, but I suppose the results were not to my detriment.

AnneElliott · 05/11/2018 09:12

They are mainly not trying to get an education in my experience. They are trying to circumvent being sent home, that is why they say they are 15.

A place in a foster home and education is a result of them being accepted as under 18. Mostly they want to work and will often disappear from the foster placement as soon as they can.

And it's not that we're assuming they're predatory. But it's one thing to agree to house a traumatised 14 year old boy, and another to be left with a hulking 30 year old that works on a building site and has designs on your 15 year old daughter( and yes that's a real case)

GerdaLovesLiIi · 05/11/2018 09:16

Why is having an X-Ray or visiting the dentist unethical? I did both last week, but I suppose the results were not to my detriment.

It isn't, other countries do this to help place migrants and asylum seekers in the most appropriate settings.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-42234585

AnneElliott · 05/11/2018 09:17

It's unethical to xray without a medical need

Hadenoughofallthis · 05/11/2018 09:21

It's unethical to xray without a medical need

Why is it unethical here in the UK, but not in Europe then? Europe is not usually backward at coming forwards on Human Rights issues.

brookshelley · 05/11/2018 09:27

When I lived in the US there was a huge scandal about this. A high school basketball coach was recruiting adult men and having them post as teenagers to play for his team. They were mainly Eastern European immigrants who saw an opportunity to get a free education. But I cannot imagine being a parent at that school and realizing your child had been in class with 20-something men.

thegreatbeyond · 05/11/2018 09:27

More girls chased out of school by men, and an xray is unethical...

juneau · 05/11/2018 09:31

There are various issues here.

  1. Immigrants who pose as DC and get away with it are immediately given a lot more help and support than those who come here and admit to being adults. DC are immediately given a home with foster parents, a school place, everything is done for them, and they are pretty much guaranteed to be able to stay in the UK until they are 18. This alone is enough to encourage anyone with the brass neck to try it, to do so.

  2. Accurate ways of determining age, such as through x-ray or dental checks have been deemed 'unethical', although to me this is utter madness. As a nation we should be extremely suspicious of anyone who claims to be a DC, particularly people who don't look like DC. There should be a small number of doctors who are certified to do these checks with chaperones in place and anyone who doesn't look like the DC they are claiming to be should be checked.

  3. Some of these individuals are merely trying to get an education - so there should be provision within the adult education system to allow asylum-seeking adults arriving in this country to get primary or secondary education as part of their integration into this country. Putting them into schools is just too risky. Anyone working with DC in any capacity these days has to be CRB checked, so allowing foreign adults, when in many cases authorities have idea who they are or how old, into schools and foster homes is outrageous.