Liverpool Women’s Hospital terrorist bomber was approved by Department for Work and Pensions despite not having right to stay in UK

The Liverpool Women’s Hospital terrorist bomber was granted a National Insurance number by a government department four years after having his first bid for asylum rejected.

Emad Al Swealmeen’s application to the DWP (Department for Work and Pensions) was approved even though years earlier it was ruled he could not stay in the UK .

The decision could have made it easier for him to build the lifestyle that allowed him to plot and fund the ball bearing-filled device that came close to killing expectant mums and their babies.

The ECHO revealed Al Swealmeen was handed a National Insurance number by the DWP in November 2019.

At the time, he was living in specialist asylum accommodation in the Kensington area of Liverpool.

That Sutcliffe Street address was the same home inside which counter terror detectives found “suspicious items” in the aftermath of the Remembrance Sunday explosion.

It means Government agencies knew where Al Swealmeen was living and were in communication with him despite having rejected his bid to remain four years earlier, raising questions about efforts to remove the would-be bomb-maker from the UK.

The ECHO understands Al Swealmeen’s successful National Insurance application may have come after he was granted the right to work.

This permission could have been granted if vetting measures missed his failed asylum application from 2015.

But Al Swealmeen is thought to have made at least one further bid for asylum, which was knocked back in 2020.

Had that claim been launched in the years before and been hit by delays it could have opened up a loophole that he could have exploited.

The Government explains on its website: “The Home Office may grant permission to work to asylum seekers whose claim has been outstanding for more than 12 months through no fault of their own.”

Then Immigration Minister Caroline Nokes confirmed this process was a potential route to a National Insurance number in April 2019, seven months before Al Swealmeen was told his application for one had been successful, in response to a question to the Home Office on the issue.

Had an application been hit with administrative delays Al Swealmeen could, therefore, have taken advantage to gain temporary permission to work while he awaited a decision.

Even then, Al Swealmeen would only have had the right to work in jobs that feature on the Shortage Occupation List.

That list, dominated by science, engineering and healthcare roles, details the only positions an asylum seeker awaiting a decision is officially able to take.

While details of Al Swealmeen’s time in Liverpool are limited he is known to have worked in a takeaway in Sefton in 2016 and enrolled on a cake decorating course at the City of Liverpool College in 2018.

No information has emerged to suggest he had the qualifications required to work in an occupation on the list of specialist roles.

However, much of the responsibility to carry out these checks falls onto employers and, by granting Al Swealmeen a National Insurance number, the Government provided him with official documents that may have opened up new opportunities for him.

While a National Insurance number is not proof of the right to stay in the UK, it is likely that having one would have boosted his credibility when applying for jobs and accommodation, sources with experience of the asylum system told the ECHO.

They described it as an inefficient and hostile process that often fails legitimate claimants while being chaotic enough to provide opportunities for exploitation.

Home Office statistics showed 56,520 claims had been waiting for more than six months at the end of September 2021, leading the Refugee Council to describe the system as “ineffective and riddled with backlogs”.

The circumstances of Al Swealmean’s immigration status and whether problems with assessing an asylum application gave him the opportunity to work and receive a National Insurance number are highly relevant.

Significant questions remain over how he was able to fund his bomb-making plot and support a lifestyle that saw him rent a property near Sefton Park that proved crucial to his efforts.

Al Swealmeen is known to have begun renting a flat on Rutland Avenue in April 2021 and counter terror police believe he had started plotting his bomb attack by then .

Suspicious items were recovered from the apartment, which was the subject of high-profile searches that included the presence of bomb disposal experts.

This was the property he is believed to have turned into a bomb-producing lair and the home he was picked up from by the taxi that he later blew up in the hospital car park, killing himself and injuring driver David Perry.

Detectives have said the explosion could have been far more serious , with Counter Terror Police North West revealing: “It was made using homemade explosive and had ball bearings attached to it which would have acted as shrapnel. Had it detonated in different circumstances we believe it would have caused significant injury or death.”

The intentions and motivations of Al Swealmeen remain unclear, and it is not known when or how he was radicalised.

He is understood to have arrived in the UK in 2014 and lodged an asylum claim, in which an applicant must be able to show they have left their country and are unable to go back “because you fear persecution”.

That was unsuccessful and an appeal was refused by the First Tier Tribunal, the body that reviews initial rejections made by the Home Office.

The challenge was thrown out without ever going to a full hearing – meaning a judge concluded there were no grounds to overturn the ruling.

That process came to an end in 2015, meaning Al Swealmeen, who was born in Iraq , did not have the right to stay in the UK.

In the same year he was baptised but also appeared before Liverpool Magistrates’ Court and admitted a charge of possession of a blade in a public place.

Reports suggest he was handed a conditional discharge, but it is believed he was also sectioned shortly afterwards.

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust, which provides most of the specialist mental health care in the city, has confirmed he had accessed its services but was not a service user at the time of his death.

It was around this time “destitute” Al Swealmeen was taken in by Malcolm and Elizabeth Hitchcott, a Christian couple living in Aigburth, for around eight months.

They said he converted from Islam to Christianity and Liverpool Cathedral said Al Swealmeen was confirmed in 2017 but had “lost touch” with the church in 2018.

The Hitchcotts said Al Swealmeen would sometimes go by the alias Enzo Almeni due to his love of Italian car racing legend Enzo Ferrari and to appear “more Western” in his asylum bid.

Little is known about his time in Liverpool between his 2018 participation in the college cake decorating course and April of this year, when he began to rent the south Liverpool home and his bomb-making plot developed.

However, his application for a National Insurance number was made under his birth name, and not his ‘Westernised’ alias, the ECHO understands, and was submitted after he had moved into Sutcliffe Street accommodation provided to him.

The ECHO approached the Home Office with details of Al Swealmeen’s National Insurance number claim but the organisation declined to comment.

Source: Lancs Live