The UK age of majority is 18 whilst in a recent controversy over taxpayer-funded driving lessons for migrant “children” the age of majority appears to be 24. This is discrimination, misleading and potentially dangerous as illegal migrant men have found their way into school classrooms and now Kent County Council is offering free driving lessons to “migrant children”. I have submitted an FoI on this.
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I am aware of a case where an immigrant was placed in a school as a 16 year old. The staff questioned his age as it was evident he was much older. After much time wasting and investigation it was recognised that he was 34.
The frustrating thing here is the waste of staff time, local resources, and a school place that could have been offered to another child.
More importantly the need to place this man was deemed more important than the safety of the existing students.
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Free driving lessons to migrant children ? Whatever next Kim ?
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This is an important point, but we should be specific about the resolution:
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The age of majority is 18 for everyone in the UK, so it should be the same for asylum seekers.
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We should also have a standard for determining age of asylum seekers who have destroyed their identity documents, which is that if it is determined that it is “probable” that they are over the age of 18, then they are treated as adults.
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Or, we simply say that anyone without identification documents is considered an adult unless provably otherwise.
Also, I would argue that in the UK, the age of criminal responsibility of 10. Anyone under the age of 10 who commits a crime is considered incapable of forming the mens rea. As such, anyone breaking into the country over the age of 10 should be considered a criminal until proven otherwise.
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Make them all apply from overseas. Then careful consideration of the case can take place, with no rushed decisions
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