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<\/p>\nAn Eritrean illegal migrant with a beard and Adam’s apple has been ruled to be a child by a court, with the British taxpayer now footing his costly legal bill. <\/p>\n
The male, who has not been named, broke into Britain on the back of a HGV in February 2024 after being blocked from entering the country multiple times. <\/p>\n
The Eritrean has given five separate dates of birth to border officials when questioned. <\/p>\n
Immigration officials did not accept the migrant’s claim that he was child based on his “appearance and demeanour”. <\/p>\n
Authorities noted the man’s “protruding Adam’s apple, wrinkles under his eyes, and five o’clock shadow” in their assessment. <\/p>\n
The decision meant the man – who is now said to be 19 – was not handed “any of the statutory benefits” of being a child migrant in Britain. <\/p>\n
But now, an asylum judge in London has ruled that the Eritrean was 16 when he arrived, following an immigration hearing. <\/p>\n
The Home Office was then ordered to hand over \u00a310,000 in taxpayer cash to the migrant to cover his legal costs. <\/p>\n
The Eritrean claimed he was forced to leave his homeland following the death of his mother, and was taken to Libya to be trafficked.<\/p>\n
The male, who has not been named, broke into Britain on the back of a HGV lorry in February 2024<\/p>\n
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GETTY<\/p>\n
He then travelled across Europe until he reached northern France, from where he made his first bid to break into Britain on the back of a lorry in February 2024.<\/p>\n
He was caught in a UK Border Force-controlled area of the port of Dunkirk, where officials denied him access into the country. <\/p>\n
The man gave officials a different name when questioned, and said he was born in Eritrea in February 2005.<\/p>\n
After being caught in the back of the lorry just three days later, he gave another name and claimed his date of birth was in February 2006.<\/p>\n
The Eritrean national was finally successful in his bid to enter Britain one month later, and told officers upon his arrival he was born in April 2007 – which he maintained throughout the hearing.<\/p>\n
Immigration officials subsequently “age assessed” the illegal migrant as being born in April 1996.<\/p>\n
MIGRANT CRISIS – READ THE LATEST:<\/p>\n
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The Home Office was subsequently ordered to hand over \u00a310,000 in taxpayer cash to the migrant to cover his legal costs<\/p>\n
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GETTY<\/p>\n
Assessors also pointed to the man’s “visible red spots and dark marks consistent with recent shaving, a noticeable Adam’s apple, and a fine moustache” when coming to the conclusion.<\/p>\n
At the hearing, the man showed his Snapchat and TikTok “avatars” – which both were noted as having “proper beards”.<\/p>\n
Upper Tribunal Judge Gaenor Bruce accepted the migrant’s claim, describing his demeanor as “sincere” and adding that he had been “cooperative”.<\/p>\n
She said: “I have given careful consideration to the evidence about the applicant’s appearance.<\/p>\n
“I do not agree that he has a receding hairline, or deep lines in his face.<\/p>\n
“I could not say whether the Adam’s apple of someone born in 2007 is likely to be significantly less pronounced than someone born in 2005.<\/p>\n
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Immigration officials had ‘age assessed’ the illegal migrant as being born in April 1996<\/p>\n
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“I do accept that the applicant has a small neat beard, and one that he sports quite proudly.<\/p>\n
“He has used it as his Snapchat avatar, and came to court with it clearly groomed.”<\/p>\n
Judge Bruce said she was previously unaware of the “rate of growth of facial hair in Eritrean males” and said she had since received expert advice about. <\/p>\n
She continued: “I am simply unable to do that, because I know from my own experience – of my own children and their friends, of the many law students that I work with – that children mature at wildly different rates and it is entirely possible for boys as young as 15 to have fully established facial hair.<\/p>\n
“Given the very small margin of the dispute between the parties I was in the end unable to derive very much assistance from the applicant’s appearance.”<\/p>\n
The asylum judge ruled that the Eritrean man was a child when he entered Britain and should have been treated by authorities as such. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Eritrean illegal migrant with a beard and Adam’s apple has been ruled to be a child by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":703057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,26292,285,50,229,56,44208,54,55],"class_list":["post-703056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-home-office","tag-migrant-crisis","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-uk","tag-uk-politics","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=703056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/703057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}