The Home Office ignored repeated offers to find homes for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and placed them in hotels to discourage more people from coming to the UK, the head of the country’s largest foster care charity has claimed.
Andy Elvin, the chief executive of The Adolescent and Children’s Trust (TACT), told openDemocracy that the government seemed to think that “if they treat people badly, then less people will come to the UK”.
The news comes after ministers admitted that 200 children remain missing from government-run hotels, following warnings from police and whistleblowers that they are being targeted by criminal gangs.
