Asylum seekers suspected of lying about their age could face controversial X-ray checks under moves announced by Priti Patel today.
The Home Secretary will unveil a scientific committee to scrutinise ways of analysing migrants who claim to be under 18.
Miss Patel said the deception carried out by some asylum seekers is an ‘appalling abuse of our system, which we will end’.
Two-thirds of almost 1,700 age assessments carried out in the year to September found that those who claimed to be underage were actually adults. It comes after a series of troubling cases of adult asylum seekers ending up in schools being taught alongside teenagers.
Experts on the scientific advisory committee will look at the methods other countries use to determine people’s true ages, including X-ray examinations and other types of radiology, plus CT and MRI scans.
One of the most troubling examples of an asylum seeker pretending to be a child was Parsons Green terrorist Ahmed Hassan (pictured). He posed as a 16-year-old before setting off a bomb on a Tube train in west London in 2017, injuring 23 people
Their findings will ultimately feed into a system for assessing asylum seekers’ ages, as set out in legislation going through Parliament.
Miss Patel said: ‘The practice of single grown adult men masquerading as children claiming asylum is an appalling abuse of our system, which we will end.
‘By posing as children, these adult men go on to access children’s services and schools through deception and deceit – putting children and young adults in school and care at risk... I have given more resources and support to local councils to ensure that they apply vigorous and robust tests to check the ages of migrants to stop adult men being automatically classified as children.
Group of people thought to be migrants being brought in to Dungeness, Kent, by the RNLI following a small boat incident in the Channel on December 16
