The Church of England is again facing questions over whether it is being abused by asylum seekers after an Afghan sex offender on the run after a chemical attack got a priest to vouch he had converted to Christianity from Islam so he could stay in the UK.

A nationwide manhunt is underway for Abdul Ezedi after he doused a woman and two children he knew with an alkaline so strong it melts skin and even bone.

As Britain was left shocked by the attack in Clapham, it emerged that fugitive Ezedi is an Afghan refugee who was twice turned down for asylum after arriving illegally in Britain in 2016 in the back of a lorry.

Two years later, he was convicted of a sexual assault/exposure offence at Newcastle Crown Court and handed a suspended sentence and an unpaid work order, which was completed in 2020.

But despite his criminal history, Ezedi was granted asylum on a subsequent appeal after getting a priest to vouch that he had converted to Christianity. His case has already been compared to Liverpool bomber Emad Al Swealmeen, who found Jesus just to improve his asylum case.

Vicars have been accused of aiding asylum seekers to ‘game’ the immigration system by helping hundreds to convert from Islam and ‘pray to stay’ in the UK as it emerged people smugglers used Instagram to urge migrants to follow Christ to help them gain British citizenship.

One such advert, in Arabic, has a picture of Jesus and says finding God will lead to more successful asylum claims ‘in the shortest possible time with the lowest cost’. 

35-year-old Abdul Ezedi, from the Newcastle area, is being hunted after the alkaline attack in Clapham. It has emerged he is a sex offender who was denied asylum but converted to Christianity and then won on appeal

On the day of his confirmation, Enzo Almeni walked through the grand West Doors of Liverpool’s world-famous Anglican Cathedral, beneath the monumental statue of the Risen Christ. He later blew himself up after gaining asylum

People smugglers were found to be sharing posts like this on Instagram, which apparently urge people who want to go to the UK to find Jesus to aid their asylum case and help prevent deportation if they fail

The Church of England has denied there is any link between their vicars converting Muslim migrants and systemic abuse of the asylum system. 

In 2021 it emerged that Enzo Almeni, a Christian convert who had changed his name by deed poll from Emad Al Swealmeen, blew himself up outside Liverpool Women’s Hospital on Remembrance Sunday after months of planning.

It led to calls by former Home Secretary Priti Patel to call a ­formal Parliamentary probe into whether fake Christian converts are duping the Church of England to avoid being deported back to strict Muslim countries they came from in a so-called ‘pray to stay’ scandal.

Ms Patel described the asylum system as ‘a complete merry-go-round and it’s been exploited by a whole professional legal services industry which has based itself on rights of appeal, going to the courts day-in day-out on legal aid at the expense of the taxpayers’. 

Malcolm Hitchcott, who with his wife Elizabeth took in Almeni for almost a year and supported his conversion to Christianity, was also a lay preacher at Liverpool Cathedral who has previously been ‘forthright’ in his views that ‘some Iranians might pretend to have found Jesus in order to support a false claim for asylum’. 

But he believed Almeni was genuine and would ‘talk endlessly and passionately about Jesus’ and said he and his wife had loved him.

Some Christian churches work closely with immigration solicitors, who, it has been claimed, cross-refer asylum seekers to one another.

In 2020 two Glasgow-based Iranian Muslims known only as TF and MA, who had converted to Christianity, won a landmark fight against the Home Office with the support of the Tron Church, a Presbyterian church in the city.

This is despite the fact that, in an early hearing, TF was found to have fabricated a letter from an Iranian hospital, and entered the UK on a student visa in 2013 having ‘been on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia . . . Undermining his claim that Islam did not play a role in his life’.

The second man first claimed he was a gay (a crime in Iran), then claimed to be Christian, which the judge said was being kept ‘in reserve’ as a ‘Plan B’.

The judge called the man’s claim a ‘multi-layered contrivance’, adding: ‘He is not a genuine asylum seeker and should be removed from the UK on that basis.’

People traffickers have used social media sites such as Instagram to advertise crossings from France to the UK – and urge customers to consider conversion to Christianity to bolster their cases. 

Because the largest number of UK asylum seekers come from Muslim countries, they can also argue that their new faith would put their lives at risk if they returned to the home country.

A handout CCTV grab released by Britain’s Metropolitan Police in London on February 1, 2024 shows Abdul Shokoor Ezedi (pictured), taken in a Tesco, understood to be the branch closest to King’s Cross Station 

This is the chilling moment a suspected acid attacker rams a car at a mother before taking a child out of a car and slamming her to the floor

The Home Office has previously said converting to Christianity does not automatically result in a successful asylum claim. The Church of England has said baptism is ‘open to all’ and that it is up to the Government to vet asylum seekers, not them.

But Sam Ashworth-Hayes, of the counter-extremist Henry Jackson Society, said at the time: ‘We know that people are willing to lie to win asylum up to and including faking religious conversions. This is incentivised by the asylum system, which does not do enough to root out fakes.

‘The Church of England has been hopelessly naïve in accepting so many converts from migrant backgrounds and so readily offering them support in their asylum applications.’

He continued: ‘It’s one thing to offer a graceful welcome to those in need. It’s another to be taken for fools. When immigration tribunals are complaining about ‘improbably large’ numbers of converts and clergy publicly stating that people are pretending to convert to exploit the system, something is clearly going wrong’.

Today police urged the public to stay away from ‘dangerous’ Abdul Ezedi, who is accused of leaving the victims with ‘life-changing’ injuries.

The 35-year-old was also hurt in the horror that unfolded in the middle of Clapham, south London, with CCTV capturing him with severe burns to his face. Ezedi is accused of dousing the mother and her daughters, aged three and eight, with a corrosive chemical, as well as attacking the younger girl and ‘slamming’ her into the road.

Details about the suspect and his Christian conversion emerged yesterday as officers released disturbing CCTV footage of his last known whereabouts. With his face heavily scarred, he could be seen buying a bottle of water in a north London Tesco around an hour after the attack on Wednesday evening.

Police said Ezedi sustained ‘significant injuries’ in the attack, which officers say was ‘targeted’. He is accused of leaping on the ‘vulnerable’ mother and her two daughters, hurling an alkaline substance from a metal coffee cup leaving the woman screaming: ‘I can’t see, I can’t see!’

Horrified locals who ran out to help described the victims’ skin turning black and peeling away on contact with the highly toxic chemical, commonly found in household cleaners such as bleach and drain cleaner.

Several residents on the leafy street near Clapham Common, where houses fetch up to £3 million, were injured trying to help, along with five police officers who all came into contact with the chemical. Police believe the perpetrator had travelled around 250 miles from Newcastle earlier that day to carry out the attack on the woman, who was said to be known to him.

Distressing footage from the scene showed the 31-year-old mother and her eight-year-old daughter standing in front of the man’s car holding their hands to their faces around 7.25pm.

The suspect was then seen deliberately driving at the mother, hitting her before getting out of the car to haul a three-year-old girl out of the back seat.

Terrified witnesses described the suspect throwing the child ‘like a ragdoll’ above his head before smashing her down on the ground.

One local said: ‘The man was throwing the little girl on the floor like he was in a wrestling ring.’

Photos show a white Hyundai i20 hatchback with its doors open and windscreen shattered abandoned on the street in Clapham, where homes sell for as much as £3million 

CCTV footage obtained by MailOnline showed Ezedi stumbling as he ran away from the scene of the attack 

Another horrified witness said: ‘Like the Hulk, he lifted her and threw her on the floor, lifted her again and threw her on the floor again.’

Both the mother and her three-year-old suffered ‘life-changing injuries’.

The elder child, who was wearing her school uniform, is said to have suffered bruising and burn-like injuries. All three remained in hospital last night.

One witness described the mother’s horrific injuries: ‘Her lips were completely black. Her face looked really burnt, like stripped off basically.’

Three women and a man in his 50s were also taken to hospital to be treated for minor burns injuries after rushing to help them, along with five police officers. All have been discharged.

Shannon Christi was one of those injured. She recalled: ‘They were screaming, ‘Help! Help!’ The little one was thrown to the floor. It was aggressive. He threw her down on the floor.

‘That’s when I ran in and just grabbed her, because I couldn’t watch.

‘I didn’t see anything on her clothes, but there was something on her coat that got transferred to me. She landed on her face. It was scratched, bruised. I saw the mother afterwards. Her face was red and sore. Her eyes were closed and she was screaming: ‘I can’t see!’

‘That’s when I realised something had been thrown at her. So I called for someone to get water. Her lips went black. It was all over her face. At that point, my face and my arms started tingling.

‘My lips started tingling so I knew something was wrong. I ran into my house and washed my arms and my face.’ Another resident, Mohamed Ilyas, said: ‘I saw him driving into her. He smashed her with the car, then the kid went and knocked on the door, saying ‘Mummy! Mummy!’, hitting on the door. Then he got out the car, went into the backseat, pulled out the other little child and smashed her on the floor.’

After the brutal attack, the suspect tried to drive off in his car but collided with a stationary vehicle. He then fled on foot in the direction of Clapham Common.

Nearby CCTV caught him sprinting through neighbouring streets in such a hurry that he stumbled on a speed bump before tripping on a kerb. The suspect later appeared at a Tesco store on Caledonian Road, Islington, at 8.48pm dressed in a black hoodie and blue T-shirt. Last night officers urged members of the public not to approach him and call 999 instead. Detectives believe he may be heading back to Newcastle. The mother and two girls were given emergency first aid at Clapham South Belvedere Hotel, a complex used to house Afghan refugees where they had been living.

The suspect is said to have been living in the Byker area of Newcastle in a hostel in Wilfred Street, which is run by Tyne Housing Association. It aims to find homes for people classed as homeless or vulnerable.

A police car was last night parked just yards from the hostel. One resident said: ‘You’d see him walking around during the day, usually on his own and I don’t recall ever seeing him with a wife or partner.’ Superintendent Gabriel Cameron said: ‘We believe the man and woman are known to each other. We are working to establish why this awful incident has happened.

‘Officers from across the Met are working with partner agencies and forces to locate and arrest the man. While this appears to be a targeted attack, he is a dangerous individual and we urgently need to find him.’

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said a ‘big team’ was involved in the manhunt following the ‘ghastly attack’. Nigel Farage last night told the Mail: ‘This is a huge wake-up call. He [Ezedi] should have been deported after the first asylum claim.’

Strong alkaline materials, such as sodium hydroxide or ammonia, can cause blindness, severe burns and permanent scarring. But it is difficult to ban the chemicals as many are found in household cleaning products.

Concentrated bleach contains around 10 to 15 per cent sodium hypochlorite, which can burn skin on contact. Other products such as oven cleaner, drain unblockers and metal polish are also alkaline substances. The chemicals can rapidly eat away skin, the layer of fat beneath the skin, and in some cases bone.