A failed asylum seeker was jailed following his arrest after making an approach to a school on August 6th, 2025 while armed.
South Sudanese national Both Douk Deng wandered up to a school—Edgar Wood Academy in Heywood, Greater Manchester—equipped with a hammer, a hatchet, a kitchen knife, and a petrol canister. This followed an incident the previous day, where he damaged the intercom of Holy Family RC and CE College in Rochdale.
Deng was jailed for seven and half years, despite defence lawyer Sara Haque, pointing to his limited English, stating:
This was a bizarre and compulsive act lacking in any type of maturity at a time when he was in deep distress having left Sudan and his family in traumatic circumstances.
He wanted attention and he was in crisis but he was not motivated by hostility towards children, teachers or the wider public. There is no evidence that he threatened any individual.
Bizarrely, this rather charitable interpretation of Deng’s three weapons and incendiary material seemed to be echoed by sentencing Judge Bernadette Baxter, who told him:
I have no power to order the Home Office to do anything.
But in my judgment, given your circumstances as a failed asylum seeker who has been in custody for the best part of a year, the Home Office should be doing something rather than nothing to deal with your status in this country.
Would this action include deportation? If not, both sides in the courtroom on Wednesday, July 29th reveal a key problem with Britain’s failed asylum system.
