Britain’s migrant crime scandal exposed

0:28The Telegraph He tells us the smugglers are bringing not just people, but also drugs and sexual exploitation. Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Camilla Tomini. And me, Tim Stanley.

0:51Tim, with everything that's been boiling over in Epping and in Scotland and now in Leamington Spa and beyond, about migrant crime, including a number of recent really disturbing cases. This is something we haven't really discussed together before, but it merits analysis, doesn't it? Well, what we're not saying is all migrants commit crime. No. The point is that if there is a route to this country which is not properly policed, are we inviting a large number of people in who might be people who commit crime? Nigel Farage and Zia Youssef have made a lot of a particular statistic that has been fact-checked by various different media organisations that Afghans are 22 times more likely to commit sex offences.

1:40Right. Now, the fact-checking breaks it down into different ways and says sometimes the context of that statistic can be misconstrued. At a less generous interpretation of their over-representation, I think Sky News concluded that they were three times more likely to commit sex offences. I actually question why that particular stat is fact-checked quite often above others. What we do know and what we can safely conclude is that Afghan nationals who have come here often illegally by boat appear to be overrepresented in the sex crime statistics. And none of this defies common sense. People coming from Afghanistan are coming from, and we'll discuss this in a moment, somewhere with culturally different attitudes towards women and sex.

2:30Yes. They are leaving the traumatic experience of war. And the journey to the UK involves a kind of survival of the fittest. Darren Jones once famously said on Question Time that the boats tended to be filled with women and children. That's totally wrong. around three quarters of them are young men. And it takes a certain kind of fit young man to get out of Afghanistan, cross a continent and cross the channel, right? And among all asylum applications, Afghans are the fourth most represented. But among people coming across the channel, they are the second most represented. Yes, Eritreans most likely to come here by small boat, followed by Afghans.

3:15Yes. Why are we specifically talking about Afghans? Well, we've had a number of recent cases that merit further examination. Yes. OK, we had the original unrest in Epping. That was when there were two sexual assaults carried out by an Ethiopian asylum seeker. He was staying at the Bell Hotel in town and we featured, didn't we, some of the protesters, the pink ladies who were campaigning for that hotel to be shut down after those sexual assaults. there's been jiggery-pokery in the legal system, but basically the migrant hotel has continued to operate against residents' wishes. But in recent times, the cases have tended to feature Afghan nationals.

3:56We had a situation up in Scotland where protests broke out in Falkirk, and that was after an Afghan asylum seeker was convicted in March of raping a 15-year-old in the town centre. Earlier this week, an Afghan migrant appeared in court accused of raping two 14-year-old girls in Bolton. We cannot discuss that. Case is open, ongoing. We can, however, talk about the case in Leamington Spa because the verdict has now been handed down on that. And I think that is an interesting case study of who might commit crime and how the state handles them. So on May the 10th, a girl in Leamington Spa was in the park drinking with friends.

4:41And they were joined by two asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Jan Jahanzeb and Isra Niazal. These boys, one was 16 and one was 17, had arrived in this country illegally by crossing the channel and were living in taxpayer-funded accommodation. It should probably also be pointed out at this point, Tim, because maybe this is a factor. they were unaccompanied. Right. They did not have their parents with them. No. Which opens another Pandora's box, particularly when it comes to teenage boys coming to the UK from a foreign land. Right, right. Well, these two, Jahanzeb and Niazal, approached this girl and her friends.

5:27She was 15. She was 15, spent the afternoon with them, and then at around 8.30, Jahanzeb led the girl away from the area. She made it very clear that she didn't want to go. She was very drunk. She said she was eight or nine out of ten drunk. Makes no difference because actually she was making it very, very clear that she didn't wish to go. There were no obvious issues with regards to consent. It couldn't be disputed. In fact, as she was being led away, a member of the public actually stopped them and asked if she was all right. Right. But it didn't go anywhere. A member of the public obviously walked away or whatever and the incident wasn't stopped.

6:04Jahan Zeb urged Niazal to join them. He said, curious remark, Jahan Zeb, Oh my God, I'm a Muslim in a minute. They took her to an isolated area where the two of them raped her orally. She was then later discovered by a member of the public who took her straight to a cop shop where the whole thing was reported. They went to court. They both pleaded guilty. If you read the judge's remarks, it's very interesting. because it shows that the defense of the boys rested really on two points. One is the suggestion that they were suffering from PTSD. In the case of Jahan Zeb, the judge said, I am told that it is possible that you are suffering from PTSD.

6:51I understand that your situation leads to anxiety and distress. You are likely to feel alienated given your status as an asylum seeker, even before considering the offense. So they were trying to suggest, I infer, in their defense, that because they had to leave Afghanistan, traveling alone, crossing Europe, entering this country, they might have been psychologically scarred in some way. The second leg of the defense seems to have been cultural difference. The judge said in the case of Niazal, I have read the report prepared by the youth offending team. You are 17 years and almost two months old.

7:26You are 16 years and seven months old at the time of the offense. you still maintain that you believe the victim was consenting. You also say that you do not understand consent as it does not exist in Afghanistan. However, you are able to discuss issues of consent in a way which demonstrates in my judgment that you do have an understanding of the concept. So what the judge said in their remarks regarding PTSD was the judge seemed to acknowledge that could indeed have been a factor. But when it came to the question of cultural difference, no. it feels as though that was more a card being played rather than a substantial thing.

8:05But isn't that a rather hypocritical card to play if you're also simultaneously arguing that just by dint of arriving here by small boat doesn't mean automatically that you're going to commit a crime against women? Yeah. If you're going to suggest that people who arrive here seeking asylum because they've come from different cultures might be more likely to attack a girl in a park, then you are suggesting that there is an inclination there that is either cultural. So this is what I can't quite understand about some of the arguments because we have the other argument as well that's quite fairly made, which is, yes, Afghan men may be overrepresented in the sex crime statistics, but that doesn't mean that all Afghan men are rapists.

8:53No, no. But it's the campaigners who say that. Yes. who conversely also campaign against the deportation of Afghan rapists. If you want to distinguish the criminals from the asylum seekers that wouldn't think of harming a woman or a girl, then you must distinguish them by campaigning for them to not remain in the country. Is there logic? Is there logic in what I'm saying? Yeah, absolutely there is. And I think a key thing is this from the judge's remarks. I do not accept that either of you does not understand the concept of consent. This is a case where it was absolutely clear to both of you that you were taking a child away from her friends in the face of sustained and vigorous protests to somewhere where you could not be observed.

9:38So you were taking away someone who was clearly young. She was saying, I don't wish to go. And you were going somewhere where it couldn't be seen. Yes, although there was a filming element to it. And that very, very distressing footage formed a key plank of evidence in the case. Yes. But if their defence is that all of that is culturally normal in Afghanistan, or at least ambiguous, then all I can say is Afghanistan must have the worst sexual and gender culture in the world. Yes. And that's a very good argument against welcoming large numbers of young men from Afghanistan. Quite. So you've made the case.

10:18If you truly are saying that is normal to me or I don't know how to navigate that, then that to me is a very good argument against letting people in from that country. So if you're a protester, you would literally say on that basis, I rest my case, my lord. Yeah. I agree with that. And in that case, one of the extraordinary things that happened is the judge, who in this case was female, seemed to suggest that one of the consequences of this, one of the unfortunate consequences of this, was the fact that their behaviour had cast a shadow over other asylum seekers coming here legally, illegally, what have you.

10:57And I fear, if we were on question time right now and I wanted to get a clap out of the audience, that's exactly what I would say. I would imply that the real victim here is the asylum seeker community. Yes. No, the real victim here is the girl. The real victim here is the girl, not the reputational damage cause to those who share the nationality of her abusers. And I don't think reform has gone big on this. Zia Yusuf did a video in which he quoted the judge's remarks. I think, to be fair, if you read it on balance, that's not what the judge is saying. They're making a fair point that these two have really ruined things for law-abiding asylum seekers because they've damaged the reputation of that community.

11:36But nonetheless, it is so typical of all narratives around this subject that we keep pulling back to the question of what's in the best interest of the asylum seekers rather than necessarily the community hosting them. Yes. Also, just another point. By this defence, are we saying that people with PTSD are overrepresented in the rape crime statistics? Right. And they might be because abused people, I don't know. It would be somewhat logical that abused people may well go on to abuse. There are sort of tropes around that. It's not always the case, not always the case, but sometimes it's the case.

12:12So these things are not unreasonable. But the practical question we have to ask is, so what do we do with young men from a certain country which apparently has this terrible culture? And one answer is surely we don't, as we had been doing, put them in taxpayer hotels unsupervised where they can't work, but they're not allowed to by law. They've really got nothing else to do. It does seem like a terrible gamble to take. The alternative, I suppose, is to suggest that they be sent back to be dealt with by the Taliban. But you and I know how that one ends. And of course, it's very difficult to try to do that precisely because of human rights law and because if they go back to Afghanistan, something far worse might happen to it, which offends our understanding of justice.

12:55And even if they weren't to rely on Article 8 and their own rights and freedoms from persecution in their own home country, we don't have a returns agreement with Afghanistan. So this is the other argument that's being made by some who are suspicious of the motivations of those coming here and committing crime. It's even been the suggestion that people may be committing crimes because they know that beyond the migrant hotel, they will at least get room and board in a British prison. Yes. Which is extraordinary, really, if you think about it. Now, those campaigning for the asylum seekers will say, this is how desperate they are.

13:32Yes. But there is an irony that you would escape your home country where you have no democratic freedom whatsoever and then come to a liberal country which facilitates and accommodates you on taxpayers' cash. And then you abuse those very freedoms by sexually assaulting a 15-year-old in a UK park. Yes. And what will happen to these two with regards to going home? Well, in the case of Jan Janzeb, who was 17 at the time of his guilty plea, he does not get automatic deportation. But an application for deportation can be made and has been made, and the judge recommends deportation. In the case, however, of Isran Niazal, things are more complicated.

14:19He was 16 at the time of his conviction and, in fact, pled guilty one day before he turned 17. So in his case, the judge does not have the power to make a recommendation for deportation. Nonetheless, the judge has invited the Secretary of State to be notified on this matter for their consideration. But there's something cynical about even the timing of his guilty plea, right? It's hard not to conclude that. Well, also, the statement that was made about I'm one minute away from being a Muslim, something as if there's something calculated. It's conveying the impression of people gaming the system.

14:57And making pleas like PTSD and cultural difference, which you just know they have been advised to make. So we're going to speak a little later on to our colleague Steve Bird, who's going to tell the other side of this story. And this is the kind of cynical tactics employed by the smuggling gangs. But this has been the sort of tenet of some of the criticisms of the way that the lawyers representing these criminals have behaved, the way that the courts have treated them. It's almost as if they're sort of laughing in the face of our own rule of law, really. And indeed, the lawyers argued against naming the culprits or releasing footage because it could lead to, quote, widespread public disorder.

15:41Now, either that is true, in which case, what does that tell you? That the public is ready to riot because they're so sick of these offences. Yes. Again, we come back to what is the proximate moral issue here? It is defence of public safety. it's not defence of the reputation of asylum seekers. If you're admitting that it may spark public disorder you're perhaps also conceding that there is a good reason why British citizens rail against some of these cases and these examples. I mean if there's nothing wrong with what you're doing and how you're defending these people then you don't need to worry about public disorder if they're named.

16:24If the public is in line with your thinking the public says well we must be more understanding of these rapists yes with PTSD and cultural differences yeah who have come from very difficult backgrounds yes no that's not the narrative because a great many people in the UK by the way have got problems and may be suffering from PTSD and may be separated from their parents may actually be suffering as a result of a cost of living crisis exacerbated by two tax-busting labour budgets and funny enough they don't go out and rape the nearest girl in the nearest park. And my cultural difference from these young men is I don't like seeing girls getting raped.

17:01Yes. And I get angry about it. I get angry as well. I can't help it. It's my prejudice. I'm not really supportive of young men going out and raping young girls when I also find out that I'm paying for the privilege of their freedoms to do so. Let's just be reminded. I know we've seen claims of all sorts of free stuff. Let's just get the reality of what. people get when they come here and seek asylum. They get£9.95 per week for each person in their household if their accommodation provides food. If it doesn't, they get£49.18 per person per week. Those with children can get more. So they've already got the board.

17:39They can get access to NHS Health Care and are entitled to free prescriptions, dental care and eye tests as well as help paying for glasses. They don't automatically get technology like phones, but some charities or NGOs do hand them out. Other perks depend on the local authority. There have been schemes in Northern Ireland and Oxford offering free travel. Reform produced evidence in the summer that suggested that cash-strapped councils were giving out crazy golf trips, circus tickets and countless Amazon parcels. Now, again, you could have some sympathy if it is Darren Jones's woman and a baby in the boat.

18:16Less sympathy if it's a young man wanting to commit crime. And let's just cite another really horrific example. We've mentioned the allegations that have been made in Bolton and Falkirk, and as the proceedings are active in that case, we can't really go into further details. But I think we should also not forget, of course, the absolutely horrific murder of Rhiannon White, a young mother, 27. She'd been working at Walsall's Park Inn Hotel that had been turned over to migrants. in October last year when she was stabbed to death with a screwdriver by a man called Deng Chol Majek, a Sudanese migrant who had arrived in Britain via a small boat the previous July, having travelled through Libya, Italy and Germany.

19:04So when some of these campaigners are wondering why people are getting angry about this, they're getting angry on behalf of this young mother. Yeah, yeah. And of course there are some people who just think there should be no asylum at all. And I can't possibly agree with that. Nonetheless, the idea that Britain should not be able to discriminate in terms of who it takes is absurd with regards to the law and how dangerous a person is. Now, what is the government actually doing? Well, they say they've deported a record number of foreign criminals, aided by an expansion of the Deport Now Appeal Later scheme to more countries.

19:40They put that figure at 35 ,000 since the election. But the government's own data shows that most of these were not officially classified as deportations. The majority of that figure left the UK voluntarily, in some cases without the government being directly involved or even being informed at the time. The Tories have come around to leaving the ECHR to make it easier to deport foreign criminals. And of course, there's Reform, which has published its Operation Restoring justice plan earlier this year that sets out proposals to deport 600 ,000 migrants over five years. Speaking of Farage, didn't you find it interesting that Jordan Bardella, who is hoping to be the next French president in the absence of his...

20:23At 30 years old, they get younger and younger. I know they do. Macron's younger than me. In the absence of his colleague at France's national rally, Marine Le Pen, who is having problems standing because she's had a degree of lawfare waged against her. Him saying that if he did become French president and indeed Nigel Farage was the British PM, that they could work together on stopping the boats. And he said that he would allow migrants to come back into France because it's a safe country. Where's the political sort of gain in that? Why does Bardella, if he's going to talk tough on immigration, want a load of migrants coming back across the channel to him?

21:00Because that's going to push up his own small boat arrivals and make it look like, despite his hardline stance, that he isn't really controlling the border. I don't know, but it raises the question of why that can't be done now, why there can't be a bilateral agreement between Britain and France to do this, as they're suggesting. Some say it's because we left the EU, that it becomes harder to return people because we're no longer within the zone. But that's not true. We've had people for a long time coming here illegally. They just tended to come via lorries and cars in the past, and we stopped that route.

21:31Now they're coming by this route instead. but there really is nothing to stop Britain and France policing this properly and I, for one, have never entirely understood why we can't just turn people back and drop them on the beaches of France. Coming up next, we're going to discuss Labour's claim that they are indeed smashing the gangs and speak to The Telegraph colleague Steve Bird who has discovered they're doing precisely the opposite.

22:06Senior news reporter Steve Burr joins us now. Welcome to The Daily T, Steve. Thank you very much. Lovely to see you. Now, you've been out to Calais and Dunkirk. That's it, yes. To try and find out what is going on on the border. And we've just focused on the issue around men coming over on small boats and committing crimes against women. You've got a bit of a different perspective on this because you've discovered that there's some exploitation going on when it comes to smugglers trying to hone in on lone women wanting to cross the channel? Yeah, what's happened is we carried out, for about three months now, we've been looking at the issues of the way people smugglers operate.

22:42We looked at how they might come to the UK, or rather they might bring people to the UK, saying to them that there's ways to make money. And we built up a network of contacts with people smugglers mainly operating in northern France. And what we found is that they're pretty good capitalists. They're very determined businessmen and they adapt their model accordingly. And one of the things we noticed was, firstly, how they're adapting their income stream to involve drugs. And then because they have a dominance in these camps, they also have an element of power, which means they're able to exert that power over women, often lone women, and sexually assault them.

23:17So this whole notion of smashing the gangs, I mean, it was language that was first used by the Tories. It then became adopted by Labour. My impression, and I've got a freelance contact called Mitchell Durden, who sends me a lot of stuff. He goes on all of the different TikToks and social media sites and he finds videos by smugglers appealing to people to pay them huge amounts of money to get forged papers, Schengen-style passports. And everything that he's been telling me and everything that I've read about your investigation seems to be suggesting that these smuggling gangs are running rings around all of the authorities.

23:54The notion of smashing them, there doesn't seem to be any evidence of anyone being smashed anywhere, is there? Well, I think the problem that the authorities face is this is an international network. I spoke to a chap who used to work for the National Crime Agency who knows a great deal about this. And he explained that essentially a lot of drug smugglers have moved into this industry. So what happens is they're used to furrowing drugs around and what they've done is they've realised there's a lot of money now to be gained in human trafficking. And what we noticed was there's a joining of the two.

24:25Now, the network travels from Iran, Afghanistan, right up, following the supply route of drugs through into northern France, then over now, as we've established, into the UK. So the networks are vast. How you smash that vast gang is beyond me. But what it does illustrate, certainly what we've established, is that their links are vast and these organised criminal groups are interlinked. Wow. What we did notice whilst over there was that the margins of profit these people are making have somewhat diminished. So first of all, exchange rates, something like the rial, which is the, I'll probably pronounce that incorrectly, the Iranian currency, has dropped.

25:09So when people try to pay people smugglers, they will borrow money from home. And what they will then do is obviously change that currency. and they're losing on that exchange rate, which means that they are trying to find alternative ways to pay. And another thing that's affected the ability to pay for this route is that a lot of boats are being targeted, from what I've read of Interpol, Europol reports, are actually successfully being targeted through the Belgian and Denmark route. A lot of these boats are brought in from other countries because they're struggling to now buy them as they used to in northern France.

25:42And that has meant they're doing fake launches. So in other words, from different points in Dunkirk, Calais, They're launching different boats to try and get one out to meet their demand and do what they're trying to do, which is the trade. And when you start to crunch down the income that you're making, the net profit, and when that starts to go like a farmer diversifying, or rather crude, description, what it means is that they're trying to find alternative ways to make money. And the drugs we looked at partly stems from the fact that an element of the gangs being targeted has been reasonably successful.

26:15and it's meant that they are having to find new ways of making money. Right. OK. What is life like for an asylum seeker in the camps right now? Well, we went to Dunkirk, the camp, which if anybody who arrives on one of the boats arriving in Dunkirk and then drives off into the town, we'll see tarpaulin encampments in the woods, predominantly in the woods. And if you drop down off the main road towards what is ultimately an industrial estate, you'll see quite stark conditions. These are people living by their hundreds in makeshift encampments. You'll see tarpaulin stretched across woods, over bushes.

26:51You'll see some tents that have been provided by groups within the local community. And you'll then see soup kitchens. We saw about three or four operating with, I'd say, about 300 or 400 people, a constant stream of people coming at lunchtime. And one chap I spoke to who is from Afghanistan actually had trench foot, As far as I could tell, his feet were wrapped and he travelled all the way, right across however many countries I don't know. They are vulnerable to an extent that you realise these people have gone through hell to get there. You can't pretend they haven't. No. Women and children present?

27:27I didn't see any children on my last trip. I did see women. A ratio, very small. I mean, there are women there, but predominantly, predominantly men. And they are at risk of sexual exploitation. Well, this is what we found. What my colleague Akhtar did, who's from the Middle East himself, what he did was he had heard and we'd both heard of rumours that the people who are running these gangs, the people smuggling gangs, were in a position whereby they had such power and dominance. and technically they are an organised criminal gang, that they are able, therefore, to exert pressure upon the most vulnerable.

28:06And invariably in society, women can be far more vulnerable in these situations than men. So, yeah, we spoke to people here who claimed that they had been sexually assaulted by the people smugglers over in Calais and Dunkirk. And are they explicitly targeted for prostitution and industries like... Well, I think it's not so much they're being targeted for prostitution. I think they are victims. They are not using that as a way to pay. They are vulnerable. And I think when a woman is in a very vulnerable situation and she arrives at a place which, I mean, I was there for, we parked up on the side, we were there for about, I'd say, maximum of an hour before we got some rocks thrown, probably by the gangs in actual fact, and a bottle came flying over.

28:50Everybody else was fine to us, very, very welcoming. but it's not an environment as a male I would want to stay in although I probably stood out by being white and you know exactly the reasons I was there stood in front of a camera but I would say for women it is a particularly difficult place to be and what we found the accounts that we had were that the people smuggler would say we'll look after you stay with us we'll give you you know natural fact some of them gave them alcohol we were told or marijuana and they would be encouraged to stay with them and looked after and what would happen there is that they would exert they would kind of force them into having sexual you know acts with them yes it sounds not unlike what happened in leamington spa as if the behavior of those two young men might be learned yeah yeah that's a good point i mean the people that are smuggling them are playing fast and loose with the law and with moral and ethics when it comes to some of the women in their midst that you then come across the uk and you display exactly the same behavior yes because your entire journey has been characterised by total contempt for the opposite sex.

29:53And this doesn't excuse anything, but it explains something. And Britain has a right to protect itself against it. But they are leaving a war zone, travelling many thousands of miles and then being exploited when they get to France. And also, these camps are quite lawless in a way. Obviously, the police came by repeatedly, blew their horn when they saw these rocks coming over and the people dispersed. But if you're in a lawless area like that and you are running, you are effectively the most powerful person there. Then you may well have that sense of power may well mean that you feel so you can do anything.

30:26And also, I think also women, I mean, the women we spoke to said they couldn't report it. They didn't know who to report it to. And they feared there were no chance of any anybody actually ever being prosecuted. And that's probably highly likely. Well, if you've got kingpins in camps and they're not being arrested there, then what hope is there? Just on the whole joined-up nature of some of these criminal networks around the world, are there key figures that are on Interpol lists and things? And are you saying that there's collaboration between, for instance, Iraq and Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey?

30:57We think there is. We spoke also to people in Iran. And again, these people are following a drug route. There's, again, I can't remember which poli it is, Europol or Interpol, there's a report that shows that people have arrived in Paris carrying drugs. so as migrants and I think they may well have come from North Africa but what that what's happened is that process of illegality has been extended now we think well I'm pretty sure into the UK I mean the people we spoke to were people smugglers who offered our undercover reporter a chance to swallow drugs to you know basically then process the drugs through their body at the other side and then hand them over actually a number of cases the offer was to hand them over at home office hotels.

31:40Oh wow. Yeah. Oh my goodness. So basically they've become hotbeds of criminality right under the authorities' noses. I've always wanted to know, why don't the French just shut the camps down? Well, I don't know the answer to that. What I can say is what I saw is that if you drive into Dunkirk, a famous town for obvious reasons, if you drive into Dunkirk, you'll see along the roads clusters of people walking to the encampments. What What I suspect Dunkirk, local mayor, whomever, doesn't want is people in the town. Damages tourism. It doesn't look good for them. So having these networks where they know where people are probably helps them in some way.

32:20Right. I'm guessing that. For balance, Steve, we should say that the Home Office claims that they do not recognise these claims that you've made in your Telegraph reporting and that every migrant is subject to thorough security checks. Well, I accept that entirely. I'm sure they don't. However, what they don't do, or at least I asked them if they do do, and they fail to actually answer the question, was they don't x-ray people. If you swallow drugs, the way you identify it is through an x-ray or some scan. That isn't done, as far as I can tell. We looked at documents, government websites, to see what protocol is set in place for border force people.

32:53And there is no protocol that's set in place that says scan. In actual fact, drugs appeared once on that website, and that was about searches of people who'd been in lorries. So there are lots of references to their welfare, which is almost inevitable because it's a maritime issue as well. What they are now able to do is they're now allowing people, Border Force people, to inspect their mouths for SIM cards. This was announced by Shana Banah Mahmood that the aim there is to try to identify gangs. So if they get a SIM card and on that SIM card is a telephone number and on that telephone number somebody has to be paid for their journey across, then they're hoping to, I assume, intercept the gangs that way to a certain extent.

33:29So, yeah, they may well not recognise it, but they're more than welcome to have all the recordings that we post on the website where it's very clear this is being offered. But the conclusion in both part one and two of this podcast is that our authorities need to be more closely monitoring. Again, we go back to the central premise, Tim, which is closely monitor these people, A, because they may go out and rape somebody, or B, wouldn't you like to know who they're carrying the drugs for and where they're going to deliver it in the UK? Might that be useful to your attempts to smash the gangs? But also, I suspect the two young men involved in the Leamington Spa case would have passed security checks.

34:10Why wouldn't they? Yes. And they also seem to tick every box for someone being granted asylum in this country. The issue is not whether or not they have a criminal record. The issue isn't whether or not they have a claim to asylum. The issue is, does Britain wish to take large numbers of Afghan males? That, to me, seems the real political issue here. Steve Bird, thank you very much indeed for your great reporting and for sharing it with us on The Daily Tea. We're going to be back with an adoption special tomorrow for The Daily Tea over the weekend because we've interviewed Michael Gove, Nicky Campbell and Andrew Pearce, all top journos who happen to be adopted and share their life stories.

34:55Thank you.