Baby’s birth certificate ‘had Israel scribbled out’ after being sent off for passport application

Published

1 year ago

February 20, 2024

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The Home Office is launching an investigation after a baby’s birth certificate was returned to her parents “with the word Israel scribbled out”.

The Campaign Against Antisemitism said the certificate was sent off as part of a passport application two weeks ago and returned on Monday with the father’s place of birth defaced.

The organisation, which exposes cases of antisemitism, said the incident was “completely unacceptable”.

It posted the image on X, saying: “Two weeks ago, a member of the public sent off a passport application to @ukhomeoffice for his six-month-old baby girl.

“Today, the birth certificate was returned ripped with the word ‘Israel’ scribbled out. The parents are understandably very concerned about this incident.

“We are asking the Home Office to investigate how this happened. The Home Office has responsibility for law enforcement and the security of the Jewish community.

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“Confidence in the authorities is at painfully low levels and must be restored.”

Home Secretary James Cleverly replied and said he had asked officials to “investigate this urgently and will see that appropriate action is taken”.

The incident comes after figures published by the Community Security Trust (CST), a charity providing security to Jewish schools and institutions, revealed more than 4,000 antisemitic incidents were recorded in the UK in 2023.

Speaking in the Commons on Monday, policing minister Chris Philp said the report made for “deeply disturbing reading” and that the figure provided was “the highest annual total” ever reported to the charity.

“There is no excuse for the behaviour outlined in the CST report, or seen in some of the shocking incidents that have occurred recently,” he said.

“Whenever and wherever criminality involving antisemitism occurs, this government expects police to fully investigate the incident, and work with the Crown Prosecution Service to bring the perpetrators to justice.”

A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “This is completely unacceptable. When sending off a passport application to the Home Office, the last thing one should ever expect is to have their child’s birthday certificate returned, torn, with the parent’s place of birth scribbled out, just because it is the Jewish state.

“We are assisting the parents, who are understandably very concerned about this incident. We are also asking the Home Office to investigate how this happened.

“The Home Office has responsibility for law enforcement and the security of the Jewish community and the wider public. Confidence in the authorities among British Jews is at painfully low levels and must be restored.”

The Home Office has been approached for comment.

Politics

The crypto fund domicile decision: EU or the UK?

Published

28 mins ago

June 17, 2025

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The crypto fund domicile decision: EU or the UK?

As the EU’s MiCA regulation and the UK’s evolving crypto laws diverge, fund managers face a key choice: to opt for the EU’s legal certainty and passporting or the UK’s flexible, innovation-driven approach.

Politics

Sir Keir Starmer hits out at politicians who ‘shout and scream but do nothing’ over grooming gangs

Published

28 mins ago

June 17, 2025

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Sir Keir Starmer hits out at politicians who 'shout and scream but do nothing' over grooming gangs

Sir Keir Starmer has said he gets “frustrated” with politicians who “shout and scream but do nothing” as he defended past comments about a grooming gangs inquiry.

Speaking to Sky News’s political editor Beth Rigby, the prime minister was asked if he regretted saying in January that those calling for a national probe into paedophile rings were “jumping on a far-right bandwagon” – given he has now agreed to one.

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Sir Keir said he was “really clear” he was talking about the Tories, who were demanding an inquiry they never set up when they were in government.

He said: “I was calling out those politicians.

“I am frustrated with politics when people shout and scream a lot and do nothing when they’ve got the opportunity to do it. It’s one of the worst aspects of politics, in my view.”

Sir Keir also said there “must be accountability” for authorities who “shied away” from talking about the ethnicity of perpetrators for fear of being branded racist, as exposed in a report by Baroness Casey published on Monday.

Asked if he is happy for “social workers, policemen and people that failed” to be held accountable, the prime minister said: “Where the inquiry uncovers failure or wrongdoing, then there should absolutely be accountability.

“That is amongst the purposes of an inquiry, and it’s a statutory inquiry… which will therefore mean there is power to compel evidence of witnesses because it’s important that it is comprehensive and important that it gets to every single issue. And as part of that process, there’s accountability for individuals who did wrong.”

Baroness Casey was asked to produce an audit of sexual abuse carried out by grooming gangs in England and Wales in January, when comments by tech billionaire Elon Musk brought the scandal back into the spotlight.

The government initially resisted calls from the Tories for a national inquiry into grooming gangs, saying they wanted to focus on implementing the recommendations of Professor Alexis Jay’s seven-year review into child abuse.

The review concluded in 2022 but the Conservatives did not implement its recommendations before they lost the election last July.

The government’s position has changed following Baroness Casey’s audit, which recommended an inquiry.

Her report found that ethnicity data is not recorded for two-thirds of grooming gang perpetrators.

However at a local level in three police forces – Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire – “there has been a disproportionality of group-based child sexual exploitation offending by men of Asian ethnicity”.

The cross bench peer said instead of looking into whether ethnicity or cultural factors played a part, authorities “avoided the topic altogether for fear of appearing racist”, and this warranted further investigation.