A former Church of England priest has claimed groups of six or seven asylum seekers would be brought to his church for baptism as they appealed a rejection of a right to remain in the UK.
Reverend James Firth was the minister at St Cuthbert’s in Darlington between 2018 and 2020.
He has since left the Church of England and joined the Free Church of England.
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His previous claims of a “conveyor belt” of asylum seekers being baptised by the church were described as “distant from reality” by his former bishop, Paul Butler.
Rev Firth was giving evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee on the topic of asylum decision-making and conversion to Christianity.
The session was called following the Clapham chemical attack, where it emerged that suspect Abdul Ezedi had been granted asylum, which is understood to have happened in part thanks to a priest who vouched for his commitment to Christianity, following conversion.
Mr Firth told the committee that when he joined St Cuthbert’s in 2018, there was a “surprising number” of baptisms going forward with asylum seekers.
He said it “was a large number of young male asylum seekers, almost in a cohort,” and that he began to look into it “further”.
“After those baptisms, week-in, week-out, significant groups of mainly Iranian and Syrian young male asylum seekers were being brought to me in sizeable cohorts,” he said.
The reverend added: “At a time six or seven people…
