Boy, 13, ‘abandoned’ at African boarding school after parents thought he joined London gang

A 13-year-old boy has taken his parents to court after they ‘abandoned’ him at a boarding school in Africa over fears he was ‘joining a London gang’.

The teenager has started the family court case himself to try and return to his home in the UK, claiming his parents have ‘physically and emotionally abandoned’ him.

His lawyers said he denies becoming involved with any gangs in London, and described him as ‘very polite and articulate’ and a keen fan of football and cooking.

The boy, who cannot be named, contacted the British Consulate and a child welfare organisation after his parents enrolled him at the school and flew home to England without him.

They took him to the country under the lie they were going to care for an ill relative, and only bothered to pack just a few of his possessions.

The boy claims he is receiving ‘inadequate’ food and tuition at the school, and is being ‘mistreated’ while there.

He also finds it humiliating that ‘his English friends tease him for having been “deported”,’ his lawyers argued.

Deirdre Fottrell KC, for the boy, said: ‘The steps that this boy, not yet 14, has taken to try and remedy the awful situation he finds himself in are extreme.

‘There is clear evidence that he is being harmed emotionally, psychologically and possibly physically in the environment in which he has been placed.’

While he was in the UK, the boy also claims to have suffered physical abuse and ‘incredibly restrictive measures’, including his parents tracking him through his mobile phone.

Ms Fottrell also said that the boy’s mother ‘accepts having physically chastised and abused’ her son while he was in the UK, and that while the boy ‘is alive to the fact that he is not perfect’, he is ‘upset, confused and distressed’.

Rebecca Foulkes, for the boy’s father, said social workers had outlined that, before the boy left the UK, there was ‘difficulty in managing (his) behaviours and in trying to manage them the mother was using physical aggression on occasion to do so’.

Social workers had reported that he was frequently late to class, would sometimes stay out late and that his school claimed it had ‘suspicions about him engaging in criminal activities’ and made ‘observations of him in expensive clothes and possession of phones’.

In written submissions, she continued that the school ‘recorded concerns about his social vulnerability and susceptibility to grooming’, had been accused of stealing phones and had ‘a number of photographs of knives on his phone including photographs of his friends holding knives’.

Ms Foulkes said: ‘From the father’s perspective, there was a clear deterioration in his son’s behaviours with a move towards criminal behaviours.

‘There is no real acceptance from him of the risks to which he was exposing himself.’

She continued that ‘high-quality care and education in a boundaried setting’ was available in Africa, ‘where the risks to which he exposed himself in the UK are not present’.

Ms Foulkes added: ‘He has great potential which is likely to be squandered if he were to return to the UK.’

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