Furious parents remove children from school over claims ‘intimidating’ 30-year-old asylum seeker ‘father-of-two’ was posing as 15-year-old pupil due to take his mock maths GCSE today
- Parents are furious over claims about pupil at Stoke High School in Ipswich
- Year 11 pupil who is 6ft 1in tall claims to be aged 15 – but looks far older
- Due to take mock exam today, but has not been seen at school since Thursday
- School wrote to parents today to confirm Home Office is probing boy’s status
Parents have had no undertaking to confirm that the 6ft 1in tall pupil will not be returning to Stoke High School in Ipswich, Suffolk
A growing number of angry parents are withdrawing their children from a school over claims that one of its pupils is really a man aged up to 30 years old.
Parents are said to be furious that they have had no undertaking to confirm that the 6ft 1in tall pupil will not be returning to Stoke High School in Ipswich, Suffolk.
The Year 11 pupil who claims to be aged 15 but looks far older had been due to take his mock GCSE maths exam today, but he has not been seen at the school since Thursday morning.
The school which is run by the Ormiston Academies Trust wrote to parents about the boy for the first time today to confirm that the Home Office was investigating his status.
The letter sent by email confirmed that the Home Office was investigating the status of the pupil, but did not rule out that he might return in the future and simply said that he was not at the school ‘at this time’.
The Home Office later said local social services should ‘assess’ the boy to determine his true age.
The pupil who is believed to be Iranian is thought to have arrived in the UK via Germany as an asylum seeker and told immigration authorities that he was aged 15.
The Year 11 pupil who claims to be aged 15 but looks far older had been due to take his mock GCSE maths exam today, but he has not been seen at the school since Thursday morning
But his classmates quickly became suspicious that he was much older and found his apparent Facebook page showing old pictures of him with a full beard, a hairy chest and swigging a beer.
A Home Office spokesperson today said: ‘The Home Office does not routinely comment on individual cases.
‘Where there are concerns that an individual may not be a minor as claimed, the Home Office’s policy is to ask social services to complete a full age assessment.’
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’30-year-old’ asylum seeker accused of lying about being 15…
‘How is there a THIRTY-year-old man in our maths class?’…
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Van driver Desmond Newby, 51, and wife Victoria, 32, said they were keeping their daughters Jamie, 15, and Alicia, 13, away from the school until they had an assurance that the pupil would not be going back.
Mr Newby said: ‘I want some answers from the school before I allow my daughters back, because at the moment we simply are not getting them.
‘I know he is not at the school at the moment, but we need to know that he is not returning, and we need an assurance that this is not going to happen again
The school which is run by the Ormiston Academies Trust wrote to parents about the boy for the first time today to confirm that the Home Office was investigating his status
‘He is clearly far older than the age he claims to be. All the kids realise that he is actually a man – so why did the school allow him to become a student.
Letter sent to parents by Stoke High School
‘You and your children will perhaps have seen some of the media coverage this week of Stoke High School – Ormiston Academy and you may also have seen discussion around the matter on social media.
‘I wanted to write to assure you that the Academy has referred this matter to the relevant authorities including the Home Office, and we are continuing to liaise with them and are taking their guidance.
‘I would like to reassure you that the safety and security of our students is always our number one priority.
‘The Academy follows the Government and Local Authority’s policies and takes their guidance on all admissions matters, which we did in this instance.
‘We are not in a position to share further details on this matter, but will keep parents and carers updated where appropriate. The student is not attending the Academy at this time. Thank you in advance for your continued support.’
‘If I went to the school wearing a school uniform and demanding an education, I would be turned away straight away – yet he was allowed to stay. It defies all common sense.
‘I can’t say what this guy’s motives are, but it is a serious safeguarding issue. Nobody is calling him a nonce or a terrorist, but you simply should not have a fully grown man sitting in a class of children.
‘Nobody knows what he is up to because nobody knows anything about him. It is the fault of the authorities for accepting that he is 15-years-old when he clearly is not.’
Mr Newby said he found about about the pupil on Tuesday evening last week when his wife found the Snapchat picture of him in a lesson, taken by a classmate with the caption: ‘How’s there a 30-year-old man in our maths class?’
He told how he went to the school to the next morning to complain about how the pupil had got a place at the school and spoke to vice principal Karen Baldwin.
Mr Newby said: ‘I spoke to the deputy head and she said, ‘I now what you have come about’ She took me into a room and I asked if it was true about this man being there.
‘She said, that she could not tell me anything because there were guidelines to follow and she was not able to confirm it. I told her that there were guidelines as well about kids being safe at school.
The pupil who is believed to be Iranian is thought to have arrived in the UK via Germany as an asylum seeker and told immigration authorities that he was aged 15
‘She told me her job was to make sure that children and teachers were safe. Then I asked how it was that this pupil could be in the school. She seemed to get a bit teary eyed,’
He was ‘intimidating’, says father of pupil in the same year
One father aged 44, whose daughter is in the same year at Stoke High School as the asylum seeker, has told how he came across as intimidating.
He said: “My daughter has told me before how this man is in her class and he is claiming to be this young teenager but that he has the beard of a 30-year-old and she finds that intimidating.
“I understand that as young men, you can grow facial hair, but you can still tell by a face that you are a teenager.
“But this man is clearly not the right age because even when he has shaved off his beard, he still looks too old for school
“And then when all this blew up he stopped coming to lessons and deleted his Facebook account.
“Everything we do these days requires identification so to think that someone can get into our schools among children without documentation or even confirmation that he is of age is just not a good thing.
“To me I have nothing against him or where he is from or how old he is. If he needs lessons, that is fine but he should study in an adult class. Those are available.”
The convenience store owner added that the school are yet to communicate the details of the ongoing investigation with its parents.
He added: “We received an email from the school saying it was dealing with the situation but will not give us any further details.
‘We know that they have passed the details to the authorities and that the boy has been taken out of school, but we are still worried and we want answers.”
Mr Newby said he had been allowing his older daughter Jamie to return to the school for her mock exams, but had been bringing her back home straight afterwards.
Jamie said that she had seen the pupil sitting his English and Science exams on Wednesday and Thursday last week, but he was absent from his maths exam today.
She added: ‘A lot of student seems to be staying away from the school. There were a large number of empty seats in the exam hall today.’
The letter sent to parents by the school’s executive principal Caroline Wilson said: ‘You and your children will perhaps have seen some of the media coverage this week of Stoke High School – Ormiston Academy and you may also have seen discussion around the matter on social media.
‘I wanted to write to assure you that the Academy has referred this matter to the relevant authorities including the Home Office, and we are continuing to liaise with them and are taking their guidance.
‘I would like to reassure you that the safety and security of our students is always our number one priority.
‘The Academy follows the Government and Local Authority’s policies and takes their guidance on all admissions matters, which we did in this instance.
‘We are not in a position to share further details on this matter, but will keep parents and carers updated where appropriate. The student is not attending the Academy at this time. Thank you in advance for your continued support.’
The Ormiston Academies Trust did not respond to a request for comment on the number of pupils being kept out of the school by parents. The Home Office has also refused to comment, saying it does not discuss individual cases.
A mother of a another pupil told over the weekend how the the pupil had told her son that he was aged 25 and was married with two children when he was asked if he wanted to join in a game of football at break time.
The Ormiston Academies Trust did not respond to a request for comment on the number of pupils being kept out of the school by parents
It was also revealed that the pupil allegedly bombarded a 15-year-old girl classmate with text messages, prompting her to complain to safeguarding staff – because she was worried about his true age.
But the girl was told that there was nothing ‘sinister’ about the texts as they were not of a sexual nature. When shown the alleged Facebook picture of the pupil with a beard, the teacher allegedly said that people matured at different ages.
The Facebook profile found by pupils described the pupil as having been an architecture student at the Islamic Azad University in Abadan, Iran, before living in Erfurt, Germany.
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