Conversion is a matter of choice, not the public purse

THE case of an asylum seeker who appeared before a court last week almost had me frothing at the mouth.

- PETE PHEASANT

I think the judge put it mildly when he told Morteza Araghi: “You have breached the hospitality this country has offered you.”

The 36-year-old Iranian didn’t just come here illegally on a small boat - he did it twice.

Araghi first arrived in Britain in September 2022 when a small boat from France was stopped by the UK Border Force in Dover. He said he had walked from Iran to Turkey, then travelled by lorry to Greece before arriving at the asylum seekers’ camp at Calais and sailing to England.