LETTER: Inaccurate reporting demonises asylum seekers

Your anonymous correspondent may have a valid point in criticising the proposed “bedroom tax”, but I wish he or she hadn’t brought asylum seekers into the argument.

By The Newsroom

Published 11th Mar 2013, 15:31 BST

I worked with asylum seekers and refugees for a number of years and am very aware of the demonising of them by inaccurate reporting and the unfounded abuse which they have been subjected to which has sometimes led to their being rudely treated and, at worst, assaulted.

Your correspondent referred to an asylum seeker having the right to family life because of his cat.

This is not true. Lord Justice Levenson’s report (Vol II para 8.47) criticises the Daily Mail for the “erroneous report that a judge had allowed an immigrant to remain in the UK because ‘the right to family life’ protected his reltionship with his cat.” The cat was not the reason the immigration judge had allowed the immigrant to stay in the UK.

PETER MULHOLLAND,

Hawthorne Avenue,

Clitheroe