How Britain’s broken asylum system failed to stop a migrant before he launched a deadly attack
By the time Ahmed Alid arrived in the UK in December 2020, he had been living in Europe for 13 years and attempted to claim asylum in at least three other countries.
The Moroccan national, who sometimes claimed to be Algerian, had been rejected by Spain, France, Germany, and possibly Scandinavian nations, before boarding a ferry from Amsterdam.
Alid had no legal right to enter the UK but was not challenged by Border Force officers when he disembarked in Middlesborough, and was only discovered and arrested for suspected immigration offences by police at a later date.
That was the point where the 45-year-old applied for asylum in Britain, claiming without evidence that he fled Algeria because a group of dangerous criminals planned to harm him.
The Home Office did not make a decision on his claim until almost four years later, after Alid had launched a terror attack inspired by the Israel-Gaza war that left one man dead and one fighting for his life.
At the point of the attack, Alid’s asylum application was among more than 122,000 in a massive Home Office backlog, despite being one of the “legacy” cases that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak vowed to clear by the end of 2023.
Sentencing Alid to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 44 years on Friday, a judge revealed: “No decision was made on his claim by the Home Office until after he had been charged with these offences.”
Alid’s application for asylum was refused on November 3, 2023, almost three weeks after his knife rampage in Hartlepool.
As well as failing to make a decision, the Government had also failed to use powers to declare asylum seekers who previously lived in safe European countries “inadmissible” to the UK system and deport them.
Conservative MP Tim Loughton said the attack was the consequence of “comprehensive institutional failure by the Home Office and associated agencies”, and a symbol of far wider issues in Britain’s floundering immigration system.
“This is one of the most shocking cases of what happens when the UK is at the end of the line,” he added. “Failed asylum seekers are not dealt with properly by our European neighbours and our border control is not rigorous enough.”
Loughton, who examines asylum policy as part of parliament’s influential Home Affairs Committee, called it “extraordinary” that Alid was not detained by Border Force on his arrival in the UK and said he should have been sent back to Morocco or one of the European countries he lived in previously.
“The UK authorities could and should have fast-tracked his detention and removal, or at the very least kept much closer tabs on him, especially when the alarm was raised about the dangers he posed,” he added. “It is through a multitude of failures by authorities at home and abroad that this dangerous individual was allowed to be at large in the UK, and his victim paid the ultimate price.”
While the Home Office says it has processes in place to deport failed asylum seekers to Morocco, it never sought to send Alid there, and the loss of an EU-wide asylum returns mechanism in Brexit means there is no agreement in place that would have allowed him to be sent back to one of the European countries he previously resided in.
A European Commission spokesperson told The Telegraph: “There is no agreement between the EU and the United Kingdom on the readmission of third-country nationals. The European Commission has no mandate to negotiate such an agreement, as we already said in the past.”
Alid had been previously detained by immigration authorities in the Netherlands, Germany and on the Swiss-French border, but he was not held in the UK.
Instead, his outstanding asylum claim legally obliged the Home Office to provide him with accommodation and financial support until it made a decision, and in 2021 he was allocated a room in a shared house in Wharton Terrace, Hartlepool.
Described in court as a “devout Muslim”, Alid was teetotal and celibate, and started bullying and abusing housemates who did not adhere to his strict views.
When 31-year-old Iranian asylum seeker Javed Nouri was moved into the house in August, he became a particular target because of his conversion from Islam to Christianity.
As Alid flew into rages about his housemates storing beer in the fridge and having girlfriends,
Nouri quickly realised he was “extreme in his religion and considered him an apostate”, the court heard.
Alid called his housemate the “devil” and said he should be “condemned by Allah”, later escalating his behaviour to staring at Nouri whenever he used the kitchen, a knife on the table beside him.
After Hamas launched its murderous attack on Israel on October 7, Nouri noticed Alid gleefully watching what he called “terrorist news” on his phone.
“He was laughing and every time there was a kill of somebody and he would see that he would praise God,” Nouri told police after the attack.
On October 9, he decided to take action, reporting his concerns about Alid to friends from his church, a Home Office accommodation provider, the Migrant Help charity and police.
“I contacted the Home Office and I told them that ‘we are not safe here, this man could attack us at any moment’,” Nouri said. “I said ‘look this guy is very dangerous and he is a terrorist. He is not normal’.”
The trial heard that police “were of the view that Alid had committed no offences, so advice was given to Nouri but no further action was taken”. Officers left it to the Home Office housing provider to intervene, but managers merely attended the house on October 10 and warned Alid that he would “have to leave if his behaviour continued”.
“The complaints made by Nouri to the housing manager and the police provided an additional motive for Alid to resent and want to attack Nouri – and that is what he did days later,” prosecutor Jonathan Sandiford KC said.
Alid burst into his bedroom armed with two knives in the early hours of October 15, hoping to strike while Mr Nouri was asleep and utterly defenceless.
He suffered six stab wounds but managed to fight his attacker off as other housemates ran to his aid, and Alid went into the street in search of a new victim.
Such was the force of his attack on Nouri that one of his knives broke, but he held the remaining bloodstained blade aloft as he marched towards Hartlepool town centre.
Graphic footage played to the court showed him rounding on 70-year-old grandfather Terence Carney after they passed each other in the street by chance. Alid chased Carney with his 20cm-long blade, stabbing him repeatedly as he begged for his life and continuing the brutal assault even after his victim fell to the ground.
Alid later told police he was acting in “revenge for Israel killing innocent people and children” in airstrikes on Gaza, and “swore by Allah that, if he had had a machine gun, and more weapons, he would have killed more victims”, the court heard.
Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said Alid “showed no mercy” to Mr Carney, and targeted him symbolically because he blamed Britain for the creation of Israel and wanted to kill an “innocent victim” like those dying in Gaza.
“Those who genuinely seek refuge in this country will embrace the values we hold dear,” Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb told Teesside Crown Court.
“This attack was intended to subvert those values and to lead our government to pursue a particular course concerning the situation of Palestine by force and fear.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “This was a horrific attack. Our thoughts are with the family and friends of Terence Carney, and with all those who have been affected by this tragic incident.”