Afghan Child Accused of Being Adult Wins Case as Judge Criticizes ‘Illogical’ Home Office

The Upper Tier Tribunal has made a ruling stating that an Afghan teenager who arrived in the UK by boat is actually under the age of 18, contradicting the Home Office’s claim that he was 25. A senior UK judge has criticized the quality of the Home Office’s assessment tests used to determine the age of small boat immigrants. The judge expressed dissatisfaction with the tests and stated that the information provided by assessors carried little weight in court. The ruling was made in a judicial review involving an underage Afghan national who had entered the UK illegally. The Home Office disputed his age and assigned him a new date of birth, placing him in adult accommodation. However, the teenager was eventually moved to foster care after legal action was taken against the department. During the review, the judge criticized the government’s age tests and the evidence used by the Home Office, including lifestyle features from Forbes magazine, a report from Gillette on when boys should start shaving, and guesswork from newspaper articles about the Taliban. The judge ruled that the applicant’s evidence and testimony were credible and set his date of birth as May 31, 2005, making him 16 years old at the time of his arrival in the UK and 18 at the time of the hearing. The Home Office has not yet commented on the ruling.



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