“It is much easier for us to settle here in New Malden as there are other Koreans here who speak our language and can find us jobs,” said his fellow defecotor, Choi Joong Wa, who previously lived in Benwell, Newcastle, where the rows of boarded-up houses, drug-dealing and constant buzz of police helicopters showed him that not everywhere in Britain is that much nicer than North Korea. “You cannot really compare the two, of course, but it did make me realise that not everybody here is a British gentleman,” he said.