Grown men pretending to be children

[Happypie]

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

woollyheart That won't be a consideration, as it's the case in every mainstream classroom in Britain, for children who change schools for all sorts of reasons.

It's almost always a ruse to stay in the country, but it has huge potential as a loophole for predators and children - some of whom will also be refugees or disputed migrants - need to be protected. There's also the issue of places in foster care and schools being taken up by adults, thus depriving children of a place, or delaying their placement. Older teens and adults can access education at FE colleges.

X-rays and other age determination methods aren't unethical. It's relevant for appropriate medical treatment. My friend's son is adopted from overseas and it was discovered that he is a bit older than his parents were told. Not hugely, but the information was needed for his medical records. He was tiny and light for his age to begin with and that needed looking at. (He's now a big strong 20-something).

It's not about access to education. It's about immigration law.

If you pitch up at the UK border and say you're 15, then you're an unaccompanied minor. Social services step in and look after you - give you a home, sort you out with school and so on. You have rights. You won't even be considered for deportation until you're 18, by which time you'll have started to build a life here.

If you pitch up and say you're 19, then none of that applies. You're on your own. The asylum application process starts immediately, you may not be able to work, you might even be held in a detention centre.

So I can totally understand why it's appealing for people to be economical with the truth. I also understand that it's difficult to assess age directly, but there has to be a better system than our current one, which is accepting everything you're told as true.

I take your point @Hadenoughofallthis

But there is a huge difference between swapping between two schools in the uk or Europe, and arriving with very little education because of war.

Surely sometimes the difference is so great that the student can't follow mainstream education for someone their apparent age?

Surely sometimes the difference is so great that the student can't follow mainstream education for someone their apparent age?

I'm sure it is. But there are many children in mainstream classrooms across Britain where that is the case. Teachers are expected to deal with it.

Username246 I have seen this type of extreme violence from “children” in school. They do not fight like teenagers. It has been horrifying to see.

Woolyheart it used to be a theory that you could place an EAL student in a class and they would soon be fluent. Some schools realise how this does not work at GCSE and provide intensive English lessons before the EAL student is placed in the mainstream.

However the ability of schools to provide these lessons is dependent on funding which has been cut to the bone.

This has resulted in genuine children with EAL sitting in rooms barely understanding anything and getting very frustrated. I know how awful I would feel if I was suddenly in Japanese exam classes without a clue.

Hadenough that still leaves an awful lot of genuine children in the system. I think of my huge teen in that situation and would want people to help him, if our lives were different.

I cannot BELIEVE authorities are taken in by this. It’s beyond ridiculous.

@dollydimple999

*I remember the Brandon Lee thing it didn't happen in my school but one my friend went to. It was all so bizzare they accepted it but then I was in town last week and saw a group of girls in uniform and one of them looked like she was about 40ish and I know people who are in their 30s who could still pass as teenagers. I actually felt a bit sorry for Brian McKinnion aka Brandon Lee as he just wanted to study medicine and I'm sure many of us would like a do over in some parts of our lives!

I guess the issue the OP is talking about it asylum seekers claiming to be children to get access to the UK and do special treatment and education and it is worrying that adult men may be mingling with children in schools and foster homes.*
So you have sympathy for someone cheating to get into medical school but not for children escaping from war.
I wonder why the former is also not a risk particularly as he was discovered when on holiday with a group of 17yr olds following a fight!!

I added last six lines to dimples post

white british men abusing white british girls is a bigger problem than any ethnic minority doing so. It just doesn’t get into the news.

In a country where the majority are white and British this isn't shocking and nobody disputes that white men rape and groom. However, the amount of grooming and rapes by British Pakistani men is way above what would be expected according to their demographics.

If there were tens or hundreds of white British grooming gangs raping Pakistani girls in Pakistan (where they would be a minority) and the authorities ignored it for years, of course people would get upset and question why this was being perpetrated by a specific minority!

ArcheryAnnie, "Genuine" children would still be helped. We're talking about those found (by all the available expertise) to be lying about their age to be removed from schools (and foster homes).

Asylum seekers lie about their age because firstly it gives them a greater chance of getting asylum, and secondly, even if their claim fails they will be granted leave while they are still a child. There is the added difficulty that a lot of people from parts of the world where asylum seekers are commonly from don't actually know how old they are.

There are a number of tests in terms of age dispute cases. Firstly, if Home Office officials deem a person to be obviously an adult (25 or over), they can say so, and unless the person produces evidence to the contrary, they're treated as an adult. Xrays for non medical reasons are not permitted. Other medical evidence can be considered, but much of it has been widely discredited (and the standers deviations involved meant that a person claiming to be 17 could have been anywhere between 12 and 25, for example). Disputed cases are referred for an age assessment by social services which has to comply with certain criteria (called "Merton compliant"). This tends to give benefit of the doubt in borderline cases.

Basically, there is no proven way to conclusively assess age, especially when ethnic, cultural and life experience backgrounds are taken into account. But the entire asylum system is based on the premise that it is better to give the benefit of the doubt and believe an individual who might be lying, rather than apply too high a test and risk sending individuals back when their life is at risk

British law should be changed asap to make X rays mandatory,
along with any additional medical tests deemed suitable to determine the age of each asylum seeker

X rays are used on the European mainland, so it isn't against international law

Disabled adults and children have to prove their disability before they can receive benefits.
So, asylum seekers should also prove their eligibility as a child for the considerable benefit of education and foster home

This is a clear case of where there is a potential danger to children in schools and also foster families.

Unless you want UK voters to elect a party that promises to stop - even deport all asylum seekers -
then it is high time X-rays became mandatory for all asylum seekers claiming the privileges of being treated as children.

I'd have thought Brexit might have taught those opposing these very reasonable measures that if you keep ignoring nreasonable requests that eventually people will totally lose patience and vote for measures you really don't want.

Yeah, we know why some asylum seekers lie; the issue is, what can be done about it so that scarce resources can be channelled to the right recipients.

white british men abusing white british girls is a bigger problem than any ethnic minority doing so. It just doesn’t get into the news.

Yeah? And if it's not in the press then how do you know? I suppose you're an undercover journalist are you? Or maybe you work in child protection? Or maybe you're just a defensive, angry poster on the internet ...

That was for the ridiculous claims by Cherries101 btw.

Excellent post BigChocFrenzy especially the point that failure to adequately address these issues may eventually lead to a backlash.

Actually grooming of girls in the UK is predominately carried out by British Pakistani men. Not by white British men.

Of course sexual abuse happens across the divide, but when we are talking about grooming, its generally Pakistani men grooming lower class vulnerable white girls.

@LFTE I guess you didn't go to a secondary school where some girls had much older boy friends? Well how do you think those boy friends got their "girl friend"?

Bluebug, because having an older boyfriend is just the same as being raped hundreds of times by a gang of middle aged men.

I'm not sure what the answer really is here - there is no conclusive medical test to assist. Dental age assessments have been discredited, wrist x rays are helpful to a degree but still have a significant margin of error (studies suggest average a year either side, but can be 2+ years out). Seems to me that we have the best system we can in a no ideal situation