An immigration officer has been suspended following allegations that he offered to help a teenage Zimbabwean claim asylum in Britain in return for sex, The Observer newspaper said on Sunday.
The middle-aged man offered to coach the 18-year-old rape victim on how to get through her asylum interview. In return, he made it clear that he wanted to have sex with her, the British weekly said.
The Home Office said it had suspended an official in the light of the allegations while a full investigation took place.
The affair is a further blow to the beleaguered Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND) following a fiasco over the failure to consider hundreds of foreign prisoners for deportation following their release.
The Home Office is also probing claims that some illegal immigrants have worked for up to three years as cleaners in the IND’s central London offices.
Tanya, the teenage asylum seeker, was urged by the Zimbabwean community to speak to The Observer following her first meeting with the chief immigration officer at the IND’s asylum centre in Croydon, south London.
The newspaper recorded her second meeting at the IND centre and published transcripts and video stills of the exchange.
The man was said to have plucked Tanya out of a queue of asylum seekers and asked for her telephone number, promising to help with her claim.
He then made it clear through text messages and calls that he was attracted to her, and asked for her bank details so that he could put money into her account, the newspaper said.
During a subsequent 90-minute meeting with the Zimbabwean, she was said to have discussed having sex with the official, who was quoted as saying he knew ”how to win her case”.
When she asked for guarantees that he could assist her, he was said to have told her to come to a hotel with him, adding: ”I will tell you when we are alone because you are going to have sex”, and ”I’m going to make love to you”.
The Observer stressed that at no stage during the meeting did the man claim he would break the rules to help the Zimbabwean.
But it said the fact that he attempted to have a relationship with the teenager, while claiming he could ”handle” her application, was a breach of immigration service guidelines.
A Home Office spokesperson said: ”A Home Office official has been suspended pending a full investigation.”
She said the IND ”expects the highest levels of integrity from its staff and any suspicions of corruption are investigated fully”. – Sapa-AFP