Hundreds of UK asylum seeker children wrongly treated as adults, report shows

A person is directed to board a waiting transfer bus after being disembarked from a British border force vessel in Dover in 2022. Photograph: Matt Dunham/AP

Hundreds of asylum seeker children are wrongly being treated as adults by the Home Office, according to data from dozens of local authorities.

Responses from freedom of information requests showed that two-thirds of children – 867 out of 1,386 – deemed to be adults by the Home Office were later confirmed to be children.