British taxpayers will pick up the tab after a 17-year-old asylum seeker was caught attempting to use another person’s passport to secure passage from Sweden to Canada.
The Somalian teenager faced being thrown out of the Scandinavian country, where he had been living for two-and-a-half years, when he turned 18 after his application to stay in the country permanently was refused.
The boy was caught trying to use another person’s passport at London’s Heathrow Airport and will be detained in a Youth Offenders’ Institute for three months.
The teenager, who claims he fled Somalia after deserting from the army, was trying to get to Canada to make an asylum application there, according to the Daily Express.
The teenager was caught trying to use a passport in someone else’s name at Heathrow Terminal 2 (pictured) as he tried to secure passage from Sweden too Canada
Yesterday a youth court heard he was forced to join the army because his father was part of a rebel group.
He was caught trying to board at Terminal 2 on January 8 when an Air Canada security official and facial recognition specialist who spotted the passport was not his and called police.
The asylum seeker, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was yesterday sentenced to six months in a Young Offenders’ Institute at Ealing Youth Court, West London, after pleading guilty to possession of controlled identity documents with intent.
An Air Canada security official who specialises in facial recognition spotted the youth was using somebody else’s passport
He has been staying in Hillingdon at a council-run centre for unaccompanied child migrants.
The youth will now be detained for three months before serving the rest of his sentence on licence and is allowed to apply for asylum when released.
Philip Davis called for the teenager to be ‘kicked out of the country at the first opportunity’
TaxPayers’ Alliance chief executive John O’Connell said it was disappointing that taxpayers are required to foot the bill.
‘Hopefully the deportation will be swift, smooth and there won’t be any expensive delays as happens so frequently,’ he said.
Shipley’s Conservative MP Philip Davies warned the UK is seen as a ‘soft touch’ and called for the teenager to be ‘kicked out of the country at the first opportunity’.
Prosecuting, Roy Pershad told the youth court it was not clear whether the passport ‘in someone else’s name’ was used to gain access to the UK.
Mitigating, Ian Paul said the boy was forced to join the Somalian army because his father ‘was part of a rebel group’.
‘After having served there for a brief while, he left and travelled to Sweden,’ he said.
When asked by magistrates what he thought of the sentence, the youth replied: ‘It will bring me more difficulties.’