Syrian asylum seeker attempted to take his own life during long wait for Home Office decision
An asylum seeker who escaped to the UK after five years of torture in a Syrian prison has told Sky News he was so traumatised by the long wait for a Home Office decision on his case he attempted to take his own life.
It comes as new government figures show there are more than 125,000 outstanding asylum claims – a slight reduction since the summer but still higher than this time last year.
Omar’s arms are riddled with 250 shotgun pellets, which causes him constant pain.
X-ray showing Omar’s arm riddled with shotgun pellets
He was fired on by the Syrian army while attending a pro-democracy demonstration in 2012.
Arrested while attempting to seek medical treatment afterwards, he was sent to prison where he said he was regularly tortured.
“They took me underground and started beating me, beating me and torturing me,” Omar said. “They had pipes, thick water pipes, and they used those pipes to beat me with.
“They knew my hands and arms were hurt already and they were deliberately hitting where my wounds were. I was blindfolded so I couldn’t see who was torturing me. They handcuffed my hands and hung me up for hours.
“You do not have a name. You’re just a number to them.”
Injuries to Omar’s upper torso
We’re not using Omar’s real name or showing his face to protect his family in Syria. He managed to escape from prison after his father borrowed the money to pay a $10,000 bribe.
He fled to the UK and claimed asylum in November 2020. But the long wait for the Home Office to process his asylum claim – two years and four months – took a huge toll on his mental health. Last August, six months before the decision was finally made, he attempted to take his own life.
“I was so disappointed,” he said. “I was under the impression that Great Britain is great. And if I got to Great Britain, that I would not face injustice. But it wasn’t like that.
“For two years, they didn’t tell me they were not going to grant me asylum. And that was torture.”
Omar certainly isn’t alone.
An NHS study found 61% of those seeking asylum are suffering from serious mental distress, and they are five times more likely to suffer from mental health conditions than the wider population.
The latest Home Office figures, published this week, showed 125,173 cases were awaiting a decision at the end of September, a figure which is down 7% on the total this June, but is still up 7% compared with this time last year. 39,668 people have been on the list since before June 2022, well over a year.
A central part of the government’s strategy to reduce the future backlog is to discourage most asylum seekers from coming to the UK at all, with the threat of deportation to Rwanda.
While that has been blocked by the recent Supreme Court ruling – for now – the prime minister is determined to push ahead with the plan.
He has promised a new legally binding treaty with Rwanda to attempt to ease the judges’ concerns about claimants being sent home, and pledged to bring forward emergency legislation to ask parliament to confirm it believes Rwanda is a ‘safe country’. This could potentially happen as soon as next week.
Charities such as the Refugee Council are concerned the uncertainty of the situation for current asylum seekers makes their mental health even worse.
Sarah Temple-Smith, a manager at the Refugee Council’s Youth Therapy Project.
“It adds to the feeling of being destabilised, and the lack of hope for the future,” said Sarah Temple-Smith, a manager at the Refugee Council’s Youth Therapy Project.
“The waiting is particularly hard for them. We know that a sense of powerlessness, a lack of autonomy is linked very strongly to mental illness – mental disorder, clinical depression, other things, even schizophrenia
“I’ve had many clients who have been through terrible things – including being forced onto small boats at gunpoint and seeing other people drown – who’ve actually said that the waiting and not knowing is a worse torture than what they’ve been through. It sounds extraordinary, but I’ve heard it many times.”
Omar found out earlier this year that his asylum claim has been rejected. He has been granted the temporary right to remain in the UK for two years – but is unable to bring his family over.
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“I know now that human rights are a big lie,” he said. “Can anybody live without his family, his children and wife? It’s not easy. Sometimes I think it would just be better for me to go back to Syria, where I would be executed.”
A spokesperson from the Home Office said: “We take the welfare of those in our care extremely seriously and at every stage in the asylum process – from initial arrival, to any potential relocations – our approach is to ensure that the needs and vulnerabilities of asylum seekers are identified and considered including those related to mental health and trauma.
“We are on track to clear the legacy asylum backlog by the end of 2023, which has reduced by more than 60% since the start of November 2022, down by over 59,000 cases.”
The legacy asylum backlog refers to claims made before June 28, 2022, when the Nationality and Borders Act – which includes the Rwanda legislation – was initially tabled.
While the rate of decision-making has improved for the legacy cases, the latest statistics also show the number of more recent claims continue to increase – up 85,505 at the end of September, from 66,176 in the last set of government figures released at the end of June.
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK.
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UK
Police investigating criminal offence after Daily Telegraph columnist ‘dumbfounded’ by social media post probe
Essex Police say they are investigating an alleged criminal offence of inciting racial hatred, after Daily Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson said she was “dumbfounded and upset” when officers knocked on her door last Sunday.
Ms Pearson revealed she was told she was being investigated over a year-old deleted post online.
She said she wasn’t informed which post had been reported, but suggested it could have been related to the 7 October attacks in Israel or pro-Palestine marches.
She claimed the officers told her she was being investigated for a NCHI (a none crime hate incident) an incident involving an act which is perceived to be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards persons with a particular characteristic, but is not illegal.
NCHI reports have long been controversial, with many citing free speech concerns, and Ms Pearson’s account of the police visit has led to widespread support from Conservatives and online commentators, including Tory leader Kemi Badenoch.
But an Essex Police spokesperson has told Sky News its investigation was never for an NCHI, and that the matter was always being treated as an investigation into an alleged criminal offence of inciting racial hatred.
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Speaking on her Planet Normal podcast on Wednesday, Ms Pearson said she found the visit “chilling”.
“I was dumbfounded, upset, it’s not very nice,” she said. “I was in my dressing gown on the step of the house, these two coppers were there just outside the door.
“There were people gathering for the Remembrance Day parade so there were people watching from the other side of the road.
“Whatever I did or didn’t tweet, if somebody found it offensive, that to me is still not a reason for two policemen to come to my house on a Sunday morning.
“You know, they don’t do that for burglars, do they? We know policing is under-resourced and they are unable to attend often quite serious crimes.
“This was the most extraordinary overreach and state intrusion into my private life and I don’t think I did anything wrong and I think their response was outrageous.”
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In a statement, Essex Police said: “Officers attended an address in Essex and invited a woman to come to a voluntary interview.
“They said it related to an investigation into an alleged offence of inciting racial hatred, linked to a post on social media.
“For clarity: a complaint of a possible criminal offence was made to the police and this is why we called; to arrange an interview.
“Everyone was polite and professional throughout the brief conversation.”
They said an officer told Ms Pearson: “It’s gone down as an incident or offence of potentially inciting racial hatred online. That would be the offence.”
Essex Police say they have complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) over what they call “false reporting” regarding the ongoing investigation.
In an interview with The Telegraph published yesterday, Kemi Badenoch said police visiting a journalist over a social media post was “absolutely wrong” and that “we need to look at the laws around non-crime hate incidents”.
“There has been a long-running problem with people not taking free speech seriously,” she said.
She challenged the prime minister to review the laws, saying: “Keir Starmer says he is someone who believes in these things. Now he needs to actually show that he does believe it. All we’ve seen from him is the opposite.”
Ms Badenoch added: “We need to stop this behaviour of people wasting police time on trivial incidents because they don’t like something, as if they’re in a nursery.
“It’s like children reporting each other. And I think that in certain cases, the police do it because they’re afraid that if they don’t do it, they will also be accused of not taking these issues seriously.”
Essex Police said the officers went to the address to invite Ms Pearson to attend a voluntary interview as part of their investigation, which was passed to them by another force.
“The report relates to a social media post which was subsequently removed,” the statement read.
“An investigation is now being carried out under Section 17 of the Public Order Act.”
Essex Police also said they made attempts to contact Ms Pearson before the visit.
Other prominent Conservative voices such as Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Chris Philp have also leapt to Ms Pearson’s defence online, as has X owner Elon Musk, who quoted a post about the incident and said: “This needs to stop.”
Police commentator Graham Wettone told Sky News the police are “duty bound to investigate allegations of crime”.
“They’ve had an allegation of crime made there,” he said. “They will investigate it. If at the end of this they decide that no criminal offence has been committed – and we’re not at that stage yet – then it can still be recorded as a none crime hate incident.”
The police, he said, are duty bound to keep a record of none crime hate incidents.
“Parliament said they want the police to do this, to investigate and record incidents like this. So they are doing exactly what parliament and society asked them to do, and they are getting criticism for doing what people want.”
UK
Sir Keir Starmer vows to defend budget decisions ‘all day long’ as farmers slam ‘disrespectful’ PM
Sir Keir Starmer has said he will defend the decisions made in the budget “all day long” amid anger from farmers over inheritance tax changes.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced last month in her key speech that from April 2026, farms worth more than £1m will face an inheritance tax rate of 20%, rather than the standard 40% applied to other land and property.
The announcement has sparked anger among farmers who argue this will mean higher food prices, lower food production and having to sell off land to pay for the tax.
Sir Keir defended the budget as he gave his first speech as prime minister at the Welsh Labour conference in Llandudno, North Wales, where farmers have been holding a tractor protest outside.
Sir Keir admitted: “We’ve taken some extremely tough decisions on tax.”
He said: “I will defend facing up to the harsh light of fiscal reality. I will defend the tough decisions that were necessary to stabilise our economy.
“And I will defend protecting the payslips of working people, fixing the foundations of our economy, and investing in the future of Britain and the future of Wales. Finally, turning the page on austerity once and for all.”
He also said the budget allocation for Wales was a “record figure” – some £21bn for next year – an extra £1.7bn through the Barnett Formula, as he hailed a “path of change” with Labour governments in Wales and Westminster.
And he confirmed a £160m investment zone in Wrexham and Flintshire will be going live in 2025.
‘PM should have addressed the protesters’
Among the hundreds of farmers demonstrating was Gareth Wyn Jones, who told Sky News it was “disrespectful” that the prime minister did not mention farmers in his speech.
He said “so many people have come here to air their frustrations. He (Starmer) had an opportunity to address the crowd. Even if he was booed he should have been man enough to come out and talk to the people”.
He said farmers planned to deliver Sir Keir a letter which begins with “don’t bite the hand that feeds you”.
Farmers’ tractor protest outside the Welsh Labour conference in Llandudno, North Wales
Mr Wyn Jones told Sky News the government was “destroying” an industry that was already struggling.
“They’re destroying an industry that’s already on its knees and struggling, absolutely struggling, mentally, emotionally and physically. We need government support not more hindrance so we can produce food to feed the nation.”
He said inheritance tax changes will result in farmers increasing the price of food: “The poorer people in society aren’t going to be able to afford good, healthy, nutritious British food, so we have to push this to government for them to understand that enough is enough, the farmers can’t take any more of what they’re throwing at us.”
Mr Wyn Jones disputed the government’s estimation that only 500 farming estates in the UK will be affected by the inheritance tax changes.
“Look, a lot of farmers in this country are in their 70s and 80s, they haven’t handed their farms down because that’s the way it’s always been, they’ve always known there was never going to be inheritance tax.”
On Friday, Sir Keir addressed farmers’ concerns, saying: “I know some farmers are anxious about the inheritance tax rules that we brought in two weeks ago.
“What I would say about that is, once you add the £1m for the farmland to the £1m that is exempt for your spouse, for most couples with a farm wanting to hand on to their children, it’s £3m before anybody pays a penny in inheritance tax.”
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Welsh farmer Gareth Wyn Jones
Ministers said the move will not affect small farms and is aimed at targeting wealthy landowners who buy up farmland to avoid paying inheritance tax.
But analysis this week said a typical family farm would have to put 159% of annual profits into paying the new inheritance tax every year for a decade and could have to sell 20% of their land.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
The Country and Land Business Association (CLA), which represents owners of rural land, property and businesses in England and Wales, found a typical 200-acre farm owned by one person with an expected profit of £27,300 would face a £435,000 inheritance tax bill.
The plan says families can spread the inheritance tax payments over 10 years, but the CLA found this would require an average farm to allocate 159% of its profits each year for a decade.
To pay that, successors could be forced to sell 20% of their land, the analysis found.
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