A VIETNAMESE woman allegedly trafficked into Britain as a child was found by the Home Office to not be at risk of exploitation despite its own staff recommending that she be taken into care at the airport.

Lawyers for the 20-year-old, known only as V, said yesterday the Home Office had “perversely relied on the steps taken to remove [V] from real and immediate risk of harm” to justify its decision that there were no conclusive grounds to believe she was a victim of child trafficking.

Shu Shin Luh, representing V, said the Home Office was using the “protection of the victim from real and immediate risks of exploitation … [as] grounds for denying the victim further protection.”

She said that V’s father, who was “violent and abusive towards her,” had arranged for her to “attend a course in the UK” for which they had to pay more than £4,000 for tuition and an additional £2,000 a month for accommodation, even though she was to stay with her paternal uncle.

V arrived at Gatwick airport in December 2014, aged 17, and was immediately placed in emergency local authority care under Operation Newbridge, a joint operation by West Sussex County Council (WSCC) and Sussex Police, after a Border Force officer concluded there was a “strong likelihood” that V had been trafficked.

WSCC agreed, finding that there was a “risk that she would be exploited in the form of enforced labour, cannabis cultivation or prostitution” if allowed to live with her uncle.

V has since been in the protection of the council’s children’s services, but the Home Office claims that, because V “never came to any harm,” any concerns about her alleged trafficking are “speculative.”

Just after her arrival, the Home Office considered her to be a potential victim of trafficking but decided in September 2016 that she had not been trafficked, a decision upheld in November 2017 and again in January, as it was “incredible” that her father would agree to her leaving Vietnam.

But Ms Luh said an independent report by child-trafficking expert Christine Beddoe said the trafficking of Vietnamese children by their families is a “widely known pattern.”

Citing the National Crime Agency’s own figures, she pointed out that “Vietnamese children have consistently been the largest group of foreign national children” referred to the authorities as suspected victims of trafficking.

Judge Richard Clayton QC said V’s written case for a judicial review of the Home Office’s decision was “pretty persuasive” and granted permission for a full hearing.