Staff have been suspended at a private company working with the Home Office after a baby’s birth certificate was returned to a Jewish family ripped and with the word “Israel” crossed out.

It follows an urgent review of the incident announced earlier in the week by Home Secretary James Cleverly, who confirmed the suspension on social media.

It is not clear how many members of staff are facing disciplinary action over the incident.

Cleverly said: “We apologise to the family for the offence caused and I have ordered an urgent review of a birth certificate being defaced. While we establish the facts, our commercial partner has suspended some staff.”

The family at Mahaneh Yehudah Market in Jerusalem, 6 October 2023

The Home Secretary called the matter “totally unacceptable” and said, “we will not tolerate antisemitism.”

This week, the baby’s father, Israel, told the JC that he hoped “whoever did this cannot work again for the government.”

He added that the incident reminded him of his grandparents who fled the Nazis in the 1940s and said he had considered leaving the UK with his family because of the rise in antisemitism.

“I’m afraid at one point we will have to go” said the father of three, “we don’t want our children to suffer any more discrimination.”

Israel said: “Whoever did this – their set of values is different to British values – that they could put their hands on the most private of our documents, a new baby’s birth certificate, it’s terrible and scary. What else are they doing to Jewish documents?”