‘So many warning signs’: asylum seeker posed as child before murdering aspiring Marine
The Home Office has been spared an inquest into how a violent Afghan asylum seeker entered the country before murdering an aspiring Royal Marine.
Tom Roberts, 21, was stabbed to death by Lawangeen Abdulrahimzai who had previously shot two migrants with a Kalashnikov rifle in Serbia while travelling to the UK.
Abdulrahimzai told Border Force officers he was 14 when he was actually 19. He also claimed to be fleeing the Taliban.
He was placed into a secondary school in Bournemouth, Dorset, before being expelled for carrying a knife and enrolled in another nearby.
Rachael Griffin, senior coroner for Dorset, ruled on Wednesday that there was no need for a full inquest into the circumstances surrounding Roberts’s death.
Abdulrahimzai was jailed for 29 years last year for Roberts’s murder in March 2022 following a trial at Salisbury Crown Court.
It later emerged that he was flagged as “susceptible to terrorism” by the Home Office’s Prevent anti-terrorism task group in 2021.
Ms Griffin ruled the inquest did not meet the criteria for Article 2 of the European Convention of Human Rights, which states that if the state knew or ought to have known of an immediate risk to an individual’s life, it must take reasonable steps to deal with that risk.
Ms Griffin acknowledged that there were “individual errors” but said they “do not amount to a systemic failure”.
She said although there was an “emerging pattern of violent behaviour and a risk to others of harm”, at the time of the incident the illegal immigrant had not used a knife in an act of violence nor made any threats to kill since arriving in the UK in December 2019.
However, in a coroner’s report explaining her decision, the list of failings by authorities was laid bare.
Ms Griffin said Abdulrahimzai arrived in the UK on December 26 2019, hidden in a vehicle on a ferry from Cherbourg and told Border Force officials he was 14. No assessment was carried out.
His fingerprints were taken a few weeks later and revealed he had links with Norway and Italy.
The fingerprints were sent to both countries but with no request for any further information – if this had been done it would have revealed his age was in question.
On January 29 2020, his foster carer reported that a dentist said Abdulrahimzai was older than he had indicated and while it was felt an age assessment was needed, it was not done because the authorities felt a mental health assessment was needed first.
From December 21 2020 and throughout 2021, there were several incidents and concerns raised around Abdulrahimzai carrying knives, including allegedly chasing another pupil at his school with a knife, which he denied.
In May 2021, he hurt another student at school, causing injury, and in July that year he tried to headbutt his foster carer, who managed to move out of the way.
In September, when he had been placed somewhere else, he was accused of assaulting another child.
In January 2022, the authorities held a meeting confirming an age assessment would be carried out because Abdulrahimzai had been “bringing females back to his placement” and was refusing to attend school or engage in education.
On the evening of March 10, about 30 hours before Roberts was stabbed, police received a call about a youth carrying a machete-style knife in public.
The coroner’s report states that when police attended his address to speak to Abdulrahimzai, the gates were locked and they could see a member of staff asleep at his desk but could not gain access.
Abdulrahimzai’s fingerprints were not shared with Interpol until after Roberts’s death, which revealed in September 2022 that he had been convicted of a double homicide in Serbia.
On the night of 31 July 2018, Abdulrahimzai walked into a shed in farmland on the edge of Dobrinci where a group of refugees were staying, and gunned down two Afghan men in cold blood with an assault rifle.
Roberts’s family previously accused the Border Force and Home Office of systemic failures which allowed Abdulrahimzai into the country.
They had pinned their hopes on a full inquest to publicly scrutinise the failings and to ask questions of the officials involved.
Dolores Wallace-Roberts, Roberts’s mother, said: “The Home Office don’t want to engage with us. They are accountable and there is negligence there but they just block any attempts to find out more.
“I have very serious concerns about how the Border Force checks the identity of those arriving in England and whether they are criminals and how the BCP Council checks the ages of those claiming to be children.
“They are basically saying it’s OK for someone to walk around with a machete in public. They are supposed to be helping the public and protecting their safety but instead the coroner is protecting the Home Office, Dorset Police and BCP Council.
“Everything is wrong in this country and it will continue to happen again.”
Peter Wallace, Roberts’s step-father, said: “There were so many warning signs that he should not be here yet the Home Office did nothing about it.
“We will never be able to bring Tommy back but they still let in thousands of people without proper checks and this will keep happening.”
Ms Griffin said there was a system of checks in place when Abdulrahimzai entered the country to check identity and undertake an age assessment so it was not a systemic failure.
She said: “Whilst it has to be accepted there were missed opportunities to undertake some checks, for example, PNC checks and checks with Norway and Italy when Border Force sent updated fingerprints to them, it cannot be said that had these checks been done, the course of events that led to Tommy’s death would have been any different.
“It is too speculative and remote to state that there was a causal link between these missed opportunities and Tommy’s death.”
Ms Griffin concluded: “I am satisfied that there has already been sufficient scrutiny into the circumstances of Tommy’s death and that the facts surrounding his death have therefore been fully, fairly and fearlessly investigated.”