Tory shame of asylum-seeking children missing from hotel run by Home Office

23 January 2023 , 18:24

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There is concern the children could be used as drug mules (Image: Shutterstock / Ground Picture)

I’ll be honest. These days I expect politicians to be knee-deep in sleaze and get away with it.

I expect cabinet ministers to turn up on TV and filibuster their way through allegations that in years gone by would constitute a resigning matter for colleagues.

I expect Boris Johnson to use Ukraine as a distraction whenever a new scandal he is involved in emerges (has President Zelensky not worked it out yet?).

I’m even resigned to the fact that it really is one rule for us and another for former Chancellors who supposedly don’t know how to do their tax returns but deny any wrongdoing.

Try that one when HMRC comes knocking at the end of the month and see how you get on.

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I expect sections of the police to be rotten to the core and riven with racist, sexist and unaccountable officers. Black men and women have been raising concerns about misconduct and abuse of power in the force for years – decades even – only to find too few people willing to do anything about it.

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But the newest thing to leave me sickened this week has been the news that dozens of asylum-seeking children have disappeared from a Brighton hotel run by the Home Office.

“Children are literally being picked up from outside the building, disappearing and not being found,” a source told The Observer over the weekend.

Criminals are said to have lured youngsters away by playing on their fears that they’ll be deported to Rwanda if they remain in the hotel. How could such a scandal be allowed to happen in plain sight?

Worse still is the claim that the Home Office had been warned repeatedly that the vulnerable kids – who’d arrived in the UK without parents or carers – could be targeted. So far we’ve heard little from the Government, despite a call from the Shadow Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, to reveal exactly how many children have disappeared and what was being done to find them.

The Observer say their source, a security guard subcontracted to the Home Office, chose to speak out in despair at helplessly watching kids spirited away to possibly ferry drugs from cities to other parts of the country.

That’s before you even consider the sexual exploitation they could be subjected to, amid fears they’ve been taken as far as Manchester or Scotland.

The issue has been raised by Yvette Cooper (PA)

As for the numbers, around 136 have been reported missing with more than half – 76 – still unaccounted for.

Disgusting. A source of yet more national shame for this country, which likes to lecture so many others around the world.

The Observer says the Home Office claimed on Saturday that “robust safeguarding procedures ensure all children in our care are as safe and supported as possible”.

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But the sad truth is, we are a country that simply doesn’t care about children.

Figures from the charity Shelter revealed earlier this month that there are more homeless children in London than the rest of the country put together.

Of the estimated 123,000 in temporary accommodation in England, nearly 74,000 are in the capital.

While footballer Marcus Rashford and others have been fighting to get kids fed, Tory MPs and councillors have been rejecting motions for free school meals.

So why should we be surprised at this latest scandal, that children from abroad could be in the hands of those who wish them harm?

There is so much about this current political administration that sickens you to your stomach. But, as a father, to witness their dereliction of duty in this regard really is beyond the pale.

Darren Lewis