An asylum seeker sent from the UK back to France under the “one in, one out” scheme has covertly returned to Britain and is now in hiding, the Guardian has learned.

In the first interview with a one in, one out returnee living under the radar in the UK, the man told the Guardian his situation was “desperate”.

He said he was aware of at least 18 other one in, one out asylum seekers who had returned in the same way as him and were now also in the UK covertly.

Other one in, one out returnees the Guardian has spoken to in mainland Europe said they were also aware of people returning to Britain in a clandestine way.

The man, who returned to the UK in a lorry, told the Guardian: “After I was sent back to France by the Home Office, the smugglers caught me and wanted to force me to work with them.

“I don’t want to work with the smugglers and I refused to do so. They beat me so badly that my face is still full of bruises and injuries.

“I managed to escape from them and felt that my only option was to come back to the UK, which is a safer place for me.”

He said that when he was in the “Jungle” – a name used for the refugee camp in northern France where smugglers operate – people were being offered journeys in lorries rather than on boats because of one in, one out.

“The price for a small boat Channel crossing is €1,000-2,000, while the price for a lorry to the UK is €4,000 to 5,000.”

He said he believed many asylum seekers had returned to the UK using lorries: “I don’t know exactly how many people sent back to France under one in, one out have returned to UK and are now living underground, but I know of 18.”

The aim of the one in, one out scheme is to deter small boat crossings and stop people-smuggling gangs. Since it was agreed between the UK and France, however, thousands of asylum seekers have continued to cross the Channel and the smugglers have adapted their business model.

They now launch more vessels from Belgium and offer more expensive journeys to the UK in lorries to bypass the police on French beaches.

The number of people crossing the Channel so far this year has come down by about a third compared with the same period last year, but that is thought to be partly due to windy weather in recent months making crossings too dangerous.

As of 28 April, 605 people had been returned to France and 581 people had come to the UK under the one in, one out scheme.

The returnee said he was not working illegally in the UK and rarely left the room in which a friend had offered him temporary shelter.

“I’m in a city outside London and I’m scared to leave this room,” he said. “I’m running from the smugglers, the police and the Home Office. I don’t have a life any more and I don’t have a plan.

“I keep thinking about handing myself into the police, but if I do that and the Home Office sends me back to France again I am sure the smugglers will kill me if they find me, because I ran away from them.

“I’m not a bad person for the UK. I want to live in peace here, work legally and be safe. But people like me who are living underground can be forced into crime to survive. I came here to respect the rules of the country, not to break them, but the immigration rules here may force people like me to break the rules by doing things like working illegally.”

In another case, an asylum seeker who smuggled himself out of the UK in January after living here for more than a decade, because he feared the Home Office was going to detain and deport him, has recently received an email from the Home Office, showing no awareness that he has left the country.

The man, who is now living in Italy, said the Home Office message warned him of enforcement action because he had not stayed in touch, and offered him help with voluntary return to his home country from the UK.

“It is crazy to receive this from the Home Office,” he said. “They do not realise I am no longer in the UK. I would love to return to the UK legally, but there is no way for me to do that at the moment.”

Seema Syeda from the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants said: “The government’s border regime is pushing people into unsafe routes and criminalising people. The simple, moral answer is to allow people seeking safety to use the same routes as everyone else: train, ferry, plane.

“Public money would be put to better use improving public services and addressing the cost-of-living crisis, not on an inhuman and degrading border regime aimed at appeasing a small but vocal minority of far-right political groups.”

A Home Office spokesperson said:“Anyone looking to return to the UK after being removed under the UK-France agreement is wasting their time and money. They will be removed again.

“Under this government, enforcement is up, asylum decision-making is up, removals are up and the backlogs and hotel use are coming down.

“2025 was a record year for tackling organised immigration crime, with disruptions up by more than a third on 2024. Under our returns agreement with France, we have deported more than 600 illegal migrants from British soil.”