Ali’s story - a case study

ALI’S STORY

This is a case study that takes us through a young person's journey from arriving in the UK to being taken into care. Although Ali's storyline is fictional, everything it includes consists of real experiences of young people.

Arriving in the UK

Ali is 16 and arrived in Dover after a dangerous journey crossing the Channel. He left his village in Sudan 3 years ago with his mother and sisters. Upon reaching Libya, they found themselves without enough money to continue their journey together. His mother paid for Ali to travel to the UK alone.

Age decision at the boarder

Ali arrived in Dover late at night without documents. After going through a brief medical check and trying to rest, he is interviewed by a single border officer who asks him his age.

There is no interpreter, so he is asked to point to numbers. He doesn’t understand the English numbers so points to the wrong ones. The officer also notes that he is quite tall, so he records him as an adult. Ali tries to say in basic English that he is a child and that it is common in his country for teenagers to be tall. The officer says he can resolve that later when he arrives at his accommodation.

Lack of options on how to challenge the Home Office age decision

Ali is escorted to a coach that will take him to adult asylum accommodation in another part of the UK.

He has not been given any signposting information or advice on who to speak to about being a child or what his rights are. He hopes that someone will support him at his destination.

He doesn’t know, however, that the hotel he is going to has no vulnerability screening to identify safeguards for vulnerable people. Furthermore, the Local Authority where the asylum accommodation is based will not be informed that a person claiming to be a child is being placed in their area. It will be up to Ali to tell them about his situation, and they will need to agree to assess him.

Allocated to adult accommodation

After a long bus journey, Ali arrives at a remote hotel which accommodates adults seeking asylum while they wait for the Home Office to decide their claim. Ali is allocated to a room that he shares with an unrelated, much older adult who smokes and drinks in the room. This person is often intoxicated, making Ali uncomfortable and preventing him from sleeping at night.

Telling the accommodation provider he is a child Ali speaks to a hotel staff member and says he is a child. The staff member explains that they are only responsible for security and directs him to someone at reception.

Feeling a bit lost, Ali speaks to the front desk. They take a look at him, then seem unsure how to help immediately and say something about making a call. Ali sits and waits for an hour but there is no assistance, so he returns to his room, unsure of what to do next. The barriers and lack of support leave him feeling isolated and alone.

Risks in adult accommodation The hotel is often chaotic, and Ali witnesses several difficult incidents. Some adults have severe mental health problems, leading to outbursts and conflicts. Medical care is scarce; people are added to an appointment list to see a doctor, but when it’s Ali’s turn, the doctor does not have an interpreter, so the appointment is called off.

The constant stress and uncertainty take a toll on everyone, including Ali. Haunted by memories of his journey and worries about his family’s safety, Ali starts thinking about leaving the hotel, but he has nowhere to go.

Speaking with an organisation that can help Ali hears some people from the same country as him talking about going to get help from a charity by bus. He decides to join the group. When they arrive, Ali is greeted by a friendly volunteer who speaks his language. He tells the volunteer he is a child. They assure him that they will do what they can to help and carry out an initial assessment of all his needs.

The charity’s staff begin the process of contacting the Local Authority and telling them he is a child. For the first time in a while, Ali feels a sense of hope and support, knowing that he is in the right place.

Age assessment After the charity referred Ali for an age assessment, he was taken into foster care pending the assessment and given a social worker.

A few weeks later, the assessment took place at the foster carer’s house and lasted for 4 days. Ali had to answer numerous questions about his life and journey to the UK, which left him feeling tired, exhausted, and confused. There was no appropriate adult available to support him, and the interview felt like an immigration interview, with many questions about why and how he travelled to the UK.

The social workers seemed nice and provided him with money for lunch, but the process was still very stressful for Ali. During a break he overheard one of the social workers asking the interpreter if they believed he was a child or an adult, which made him feel uneasy.

Several weeks after the assessment was complete, Ali received a letter stating that they found him to be an adult due to inconsistencies in his story. This outcome was devastating for him. The stress of the assessment process, combined with not being believed and being asked to leave the foster home, left him feeling traumatised very isolated.

Deciding next steps Ali’s caseworker invited him to an appointment to review the decision letter and copy of his age assessment.

Upon examining the copy, the caseworker noticed that it quoted verbatim from another young person’s age assessment conducted two weeks earlier, particularly regarding their demeanour. The assessment included comments about Ali being impolite and interrupting the social workers. The caseworker was concerned because this did not align with their experience of Ali, suggesting that the social worker may have copied and pasted information from another assessment.

The age assessment also relied on a tattoo of two doves Ali has on his arm. Social workers said that it means he was old enough to have a partner when he left Sudan. Ali had denied this and had said the tattoo was a symbol of peace he and his friends all did together.

Additionally, Ali told his caseworker that he didn’t understand why the social workers questioned him on his route taken to the UK in such detail, as it retraumatised him and made it difficult for him to recall events.

Ali and his caseworker discussed his options, and he provided consent to be referred to a solicitor to explore whether there were grounds to challenge his age assessment.

Bringing a legal challenge After his unsuccessful age assessment, Ali has been moved back into adult accommodation, which negatively impacted his mental health. He stays in his room all day as there is nothing for him to do.

A solicitor supported Ali in bringing a legal challenge. They applied for a judicial review and requested interim relief so that Ali could be moved back into the care of the Local Authority.

The judge granted permission both for the judicial review and the interim relief, and he was moved into Local Authority supported accommodation.

As part of preparing the evidence for the judicial review, the solicitor requested that the charity supporting Ali provide a supporting letter, the caseworker detailed their interactions with Ali, emphasising that he is a child. For example, they noted that Ali, aged 16, preferred to associate with children his age in his supported accommodation rather than the 18-year- olds. Additionally, during appointments, Ali found a box of toys meant for young children and would hold it in his hands to relieve stress.

A date was set for Ali's hearing. However, a week before the hearing, the solicitor informed Ali that the Local Authority held a meeting where they conducted a detailed review of all their age dispute cases. They decided to accept Ali's age, as well as the ages of some other children going through the age dispute process. As a result, Ali was immediately taken back into care.

Throughout this process, the charity supported Ali holistically. They provided him with emotional support, explored potential social activities for him, referred him for mental health support, and liaised with his immigration solicitor about his asylum claim.

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