MP saves emigrant from setting himself on fire

A Liverpool MP, Louise Ellman, reportedly put her own life at risk, in order to prevent a self-immolation by an asylum seeker. The MP for Riverside has told of her brave act in stopping a 50-year-old man from setting himself ablaze following a meeting in her office in the Cotton Exchange building in Old Hall Street.

Mrs. Ellman has apparently smelt some type of fuel on the man as he departed her office which led her to rush after the man into the street. There Mrs. Ellman found the man had coated himself in liquid, presumably petrol, and had a lighter in his hand. The 63-year-old MP was able to wrench the lighter from the man’s grasp before he was able to do any serious damage.

Mrs. Ellman recounted the events leading up to the incident, saying the man had made an appointment to see her regarding his application for asylum which he felt was not progressing as well as he would have liked. Mrs. Ellman had known the man for some time and had been assisting him with his case. The MP claimed the event was extremely upsetting.

The man’s application for UK residency is presently being taken under consideration and he has not as yet been granted asylum status.

Some 50 UK asylum seekers have taken their own lives over the past two decades. A Nepalese man famously doused himself in petrol and set himself ablaze inside Glasgow’s Asylum and Immigration Tribunal Centre in 2007. In 2006 an Iraqi man also perished after self-immolation on the A19.