A taxpayer-funded asylum accommodation system has come under renewed scrutiny after a small-boat migrant admitted sexual offences against two young girls just days after being given the keys to a £250,000 property.
Mohammed Abbas, 29, who claims to be Palestinian, crossed the Channel from France in a dinghy in March before being placed into asylum accommodation.
In June, Abbas was arrested and jailed on a series of charges including sexual assault, common assault, assaulting a constable and assault by beating. At a sentencing hearing at Coventry Magistrates’ Court in July, the sexual and common assault charges were dismissed and he received 300 hours of community service and a £100 fine.
After his release, Abbas was placed in a taxpayer-funded two-bedroom property in Cardiff. He was the sole occupant.
Just two days after moving in, however, he entered another property where two sisters, one aged under 16 and the other under 13, were sleeping.
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The girls woke to find Abbas exposing himself in their bedroom doorway.
At Cardiff Crown Court last month, Abbas admitted two charges of engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child for the purpose of obtaining sexual gratification. He also pleaded guilty to trespass with intent to commit a sexual offence and burglary after stealing a phone and AirPods from the family home.
The case has intensified political arguments over how asylum seekers are accommodated while their immigration status is determined.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp told The Sun: “Andy Burnham is not taking the migrant rape and sexual assault crisis seriously.
“Every week a new story emerges of an illegal channel migrant or asylum seeker attacking women or girls. These sickening attacks are a danger to every woman and girl where illegal immigrants are accommodated.”
He added: “The list goes on and on, yet Burnham tells us there’s no problem.”
Philp said the Conservatives would leave the European Convention on Human Rights and deport small-boat migrants immediately.
The family said they had no idea how Abbas had entered their home.
“We didn’t know him and don’t know why he picked our house,” the girls’ mother said. “It was just random.”
Neighbours also raised concerns about his presence in the estate. Fahmida Abro, 40, said she had kept her three daughters indoors when Abbas was drinking outside.
“My three daughters play in the street, but I brought them in if he was there,” she said.
“I’m even more worried now I know he’s a sex offender. Why was he put here?”
The Home Office said it would seek to deport Abbas at the earliest possible opportunity.
A spokesman said: “Our thoughts are with the victims of Abbas’ vile crimes.
“We are boosting the number of officers on the ground in France and removing the pull factors drawing people here through illegal and dangerous routes.
“Removals of foreign national offenders are up 41 per cent, with nearly 12,000 returned or deported since the Government came to power to the end of this March.”
The case leaves a politically difficult question at the centre of the asylum system: how should the state balance its obligations to accommodate asylum seekers with the responsibility to protect communities when serious offending is alleged or established?
For residents in Cardiff, that question has become intensely personal, after a family found themselves confronting a stranger who had entered their home just days after he had been provided with accommodation.
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