Daily Safeguarding News - Safer Schools

Child asylum seekers in UK forced to share hotel rooms with adults

It comes after the Home Office’s new hotel “maximisation” programme begins doubling the capacity of refugee hotels by putting two strangers in roomsspaces that were previously single occupancy.
The Refugee Council has warned that misclassification of child refugees is exposing them to serious safeguarding risks.
The Guardian interviewed seven young asylum seekers in Yorkshire, all of whom stated they were 16 or 17 on arrival in the UK, but all said they were wrongly classified as adults by officials and given ages between 22 and 26.
Refugee Council staff interviewed them also, and verified the identity documents provided, have errors.
Suella Braverman has spoken of her determination to crack down on adults posing as children when they enter the UK.
Refugee charities have pointed out that there is little to be gained by being classified as a child in terms of the likelihood of an asylum application being approved.
The Refugee Council said in 2021, its age assessment project worked with 233 young people whose age had initially been determined by the Home Office as “certainly” adult, only 14 of whom were subsequently found to be adults, with 94% of cases being overturned.
For more, please visit The Guardian website.

Middlesbrough Council have issued a warning about the dangers of unregulated vapes following the reports.
Some reusable vape pens are being filled with drugs by dealers and sold to young people using Snapchat and other social media apps.
The South Tees Public health team is warning parents that inhaling spice through a vape pen can lead to health problems such as breathing difficulties, chest pains, seizures, suicidal thoughts and psychosis. In some cases, it can be life threatening.
Sergeant Daniel Oldroyd, from Cleveland Police reported that some vapes have tested positive for illegal drugs and has encouraged anyone with information about those supplying these vapes to call Cleveland Police on 101.
He stated: “Not only is this a health issue, but those possessing and supplying illegal drugs could be committing criminal offences. We are working closely with local schools and partners to share information and intelligence.”
For more, please visit the ITV News website.

A 55-year-old woman named Haydee Daniel, who scammed a vulnerable couple out of thousands of pounds has been jailed after detectives described her as having “no remorse”.
She befriended the couple and showed off her lifestyle, telling them she could get them four cheap properties from Barclays with a made-up contact.
She also pretended to have cervical cancer, telling the couple she wanted to make a better life for them before she died.
Acting as the fake contact, she convinced the victims that their credit ratings were too low to purchase the properties and she would have to act as their guarantor.
They were instructed to send money to a bank account set up by the perpetrator which they were told would be returned to them.
The victims were left destitute and heavily in debt.
Officers were able to recover over 1,000 pages of messages between the victims and the perpetrator.
Police Constable Evan Mcloughlin from the Met’s Economic Crime Unit reported that she “felt no remorse for what she put the victims through. She even tried for more than three years to postpone her trial by faking numerous medical conditions at great expense to the National Health Service.”
For more, please visit the ITV News website.