Syrian men in court over sexual assault in Newcastle

Three Syrian men have been charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in northern England.

The three have appeared in court accused of sexually assaulting the girl in a park in Newcastle on 10 May, the BBC reported.

Omar Badreddin, 18, Mohammed Alfrouh, 20, and Mohammad Allakkoud, 18, have pleaded not guilty.

A 16-year-old-boy, also understood to be Syrian, has also been charged with sexual assault. The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is not thought to have entered a plea yet.

The case is set to attract attention in Britain as Badreddin came to the UK from Jordan last November as a refugee under the government’s much-heralded refugee resettlement programme.

BBC’s Newsnight’s John Sweeney, who has been following the progress of the Badreddin family for some time, reported that although the case is at an early stage, police in the city have raised concerns that the charges could raise tensions between locals and Syrian refugees in Newcastle.

The three men charged in connection with the alleged assault have been released on bail and their trial has been set for 26 September.

Alfrouh has also been charged with sexually assaulting a second 14-year-old girl, to which he has also pleaded not guilty.

Badreddin's family reportedly came into the UK under the Home Office’s vulnerable persons relocation (VPR) scheme for Syrian refugees and will have been judged to be vulnerable by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) relief agency.

The latest figures, released last month, show that Badreddin is one of 1,854 Syrians who have arrived in the UK under the VPR scheme. The scheme is designed to bring vulnerable Syrian to the UK directly from camps in Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East.

British Prime Minister David Cameron established the scheme after facing criticism that the UK was failing to do enough to help Syrian refugees. It will see 20,000 refugees come to Britain over the next four years, all of whom are screened and vetted by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Last month, MEE reported that the UK had resettled just 0.19 percent of Syrian refugees resettled worldwide, prompting Amnesty International UK to label the response “woefully inadequate”.

Steve Symonds, director of refugee rights at Amnesty International UK, said: “Compare the number of refugees from Syria living in, for example, Lebanon – more than one million – with the fewer than 2,000 resettled to the UK under the government’s scheme.

"The disparity could not be more stark between the response of a country barely the size of Devon and Cornwall combined, and that of the UK.”