Mother-of-two reveals she opened her home to Afghan ’12-year-old refugee‘ but was shocked when he turned out to be a grown man who threatened to KILL her family
- Woman, renamed Julie for anonymity reasons, took in a refugee posing as a child
- Afghan man, called Abdul, said he was 12 but dentist assessed his age as 19-21
- Abdul was polite and shy but soon turned aggressive and attacked Julie’s family
- Police arrested Abdul but he threatened to kill Julie’s family and she lives in fear
A mother-of-two opened up her home to a grown man posing as an Afghan ’12-year-old refugee‘ who later attacked her family.
The woman said she lives in fear after the man, who said his name was Abdul, threatened to kill her family after he was arrested for assaulting her relatives.
During an emotional interview on ITV’s Loose Women, the mother, who was renamed Julie for anonymity reasons, has now called on the Government to carry out proper age checks on refugees coming to the UK.
She told presenters Ruth Langsford and Saira Khan that she had taken in the asylum seeker after being asked to look after him for a ‚few nights‘ by social services.
Julie recalled: ‚When I walked into the room, I didn’t think he was the person they were referring to. He looked about 19. He was very quiet and very timid.
‘I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but I don’t usually take teenagers. I take younger children. But I just thought he needed a home and didn’t think anymore of it.‘
Despite her initial misgivings regarding the boy’s age, Julie generously opened up her home up to the youngster.
However, she became suspicious of his true identity after a dental examination.
She said: ‘We went to a dental appointment and the dentist age-assessed him between 18 and 21.
‚They had to give him the benefit of the doubt and because he claimed he was 12 and the dentist aged him as 21, they placed him at 16. They averaged him.‘
Julie said that at first her new arrival was pleasant and well behaved, but soon he turned nasty.
She later found out he was not the person he said he was and had been arrested while posing as a child refugee in Belgium.
She said: ‘He was lovely in the beginning. Very humble, very polite, very thoughtful. But as the weeks went by I started to notice a change in him. I was comparing him to my boy and he was more mature than my boy was.
‚He had been arrested in Belgium. He had a bone density x-ray there and they said ‚‘you aren’t 12’‘ and sent him on his way.
‘I found out that he claimed asylum there as 17-year-old. I couldn’t understand why that information wasn’t passed on to me.’
‘I became very frightened, he became quite menacing after I set up a Facebook account for him.
‚I was hoping to help him find his family and then shortly after he was receiving these phone calls where his manner would change dramatically and he became intimidating and quite threatening.
Julie said she felt scared to be alone with Abdul in her own home but didn’t want another family placed with such a temperamental and possibly dangerous man.
Julie said that while the asylum seeker, named Abdul, was polite and first – he later turned violent and attacked one of her relatives
She said: ‘I was concerned because if they asked to re-home him, I didn’t want him to go to another family because he wasn’t who he claimed to be.
‘I can remember one day he went up to the fridge and he was looking at a photo of me and my daughter, as if he was trying to intimidate me through my daughter.
‚My daughter was stood there and I can remember thinking, ‚‘don’t turn around’‘. I knew and I could see what he was doing in the corner of my eye, but I kept on wiping up.
‘He walked right up behind me and I can still feel his breath on the back of my neck and I can remember feeling petrified.’
Julie said she later found that Abdul had been visiting extremist websites on his mobile phone and an interpreter relayed messages, sent to family and friends, where he had been joking about tricking the British government into thinking he was a child.
She said: ‚I was so shocked. I can remember thinking, “Oh my god! Who is this person?’’
Pictured: Julie told presenter Ruth Langsford that she was ‚frightened‘ for the safety of her family
A permanent home was found for Abdul and it was then that he started to lash out at Julie and her family.
She said: ‚There were other homes that had been offered to him and it wasn’t where he wanted to go.
‚When another home came up he became very aggressive about it.
‘He started [attacking] verbally and then a member of my family got in between us, in fear of me getting hurt, and then he pushed them back and started punching.
‚I ran to get the police and I was just pleading with him to calm down and just said “why are you doing this?“.
Abdul was arrested for the assault but now Julie lives in fear of him coming back and attacking her family
She said: ‘He did make threats to us before the police took him, to me and the children. He did say when he was removed: ‘I’ll kill you all. I know where you live’
I’m very frightened since he was removed. I know that he’s not being properly watched and he could at any time turn up at my house. Julie
‘I’m very frightened since he was removed. I know that he’s not being properly watched and he could at any time, turn up at my house. I panic if I’m not at school on time.
‚He knows the school runs, he’s knows everything. We changed the locks at the house and I’m constantly vigilant of everything.‘
Julie has called for Theresa May to enforce greater scrutiny on the refugees who are being taken in by British families.
She said: ‚It’s not that I want to put people off looking after any refugee or asylum seeker, it’s just that proper checks need to be done.
‘They are guessing these men’s ages and placing them in the homes of other vulnerable children.
‚To Theresa May and the Government I would like to say, if you are insisting on allowing these men to come here then make sure you give proper age assessment checks, like in Belgium.
‚Stop putting the burden on carers to deal with it, carers like myself whose families are being put at great risk.‘
