Asylum seekers forced to pretend to shoot guns by immigration officials to stay in UK

By Christopher Hope, Whitehall Editor Published: 4:42PM GMT 03 March 2010

Officials additionally forced would-be kid soldiers who are claiming haven to fire hypothetical weapons, according to a former immigration worker.

In an additional instance, an worker chanted "Um Bongo, Um Bongo" during a contention about an haven focus from a Congolese family.

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Former worker Louise Perrett told the House of Commons home affairs name cabinet that one co-worker had asked multiform immature African men to denote "shooting" hypothetical weapons to behind up their claims they had been kid soldiers.

Miss Perrett, who worked at the Cardiff bureau for three-and-a-half months last summer, pronounced she had been repelled by the tips from one physical education instructor on how to talk haven seekers.

She said: "When he had immature men or young kids claiming to be former kid soldiers, he would have them distortion on the building and denote to him how they would fire someone from the bush.

"I could not give up assimilate his motive but he was observant "if he didnt do it immediately, or there was a little hesitation, you would find that they were lying"."

When Miss Perritt asked about alternative staffs attitudes towards the claimants before long after starting work, she was told by one co-worker at the bureau that "if it was up to me I would take them outward and fire them".

Staff were ridiculed for commendatory claims and a little workers had used a cuddly fondle as a "grant monkey, that was left on employees desks if they postulated asylum, she said, nonetheless this use had right away stopped.

Miss Perrett additionally purported staff mocked each alternative when haven applications were approved, insisting that they had "let one through".

Miss Perrett additionally claimed an additional worker had sung "Um Bongo, Um Bongo, they kill them in the Congo when she told him she was assessing an focus from a Congolese family.

Miss Perrett had attempted to lift her concerns with comparison managers in the bureau but they were "laughed off". however, Miss Perrett pronounced she had been tender by the poise of a name couple of employees in the office.

Asked by Bob Russell MP if the problems were caused by one or dual "domineering people" in the office, she said: "There are great people there, Dont get me wrong, who action in a professional, well-behaved manner.

"But the actuality is that the enlightenment of the bureau does not assent those people to verbalise up and contend "this is wrong"."

Miss Perrett continued: "The younger members of staff were really "gung ho, really assertive and bold from the impulse they met an haven seeker in the watchful room.

They showed a "general hostility, not so most in the things they would contend but in their feeling and the brevity and ubiquitous danger that I only thought, as a great official, was all unnecessary. We would not design to be treated with colour similar to that".

The group has right away launched an investigation. Lin Homer, the agency"s arch executive, said: "We assimilate the earnest of the allegations that have been done and they are now the theme of an eccentric investigation.

"While the review is ongoing it is inapt for me to criticism serve on the claims. We are stability with the critical commercial operation of listening to peoples haven claims and creation satisfactory decisions formed on the merits of each case.

"The UK Border Agency delicately considers each haven box and if an focus is refused the petitioner will routinely have a right of interest to the eccentric courts."