When a court considered a case involving a question of whether an asylum applicant who had arrived in the UK without documents or with false documents, it had to balance properly the need for control over entry with the stark realities which faced a person fleeing persecution.
Held: section 2(13) did not define a ‘false immigration document’ by contrast with an ‘immigration document’. Rather, a ‘false immigration document’ was a sub-species of an ‘immigration document’. In that way the reference in section 2(4)(c) encompassed both a genuine and a false immigration document. The immigrant is required to provide a reasonable excuse for not providing any immigration document. Section 4(2)(d) enables an immigrant to produce a false immigration document and prove he used it for the whole of his journey to the United Kingdom. If either a valid or false immigration document has been destroyed or disposed of the immigrant must prove that he had reasonable grounds for doing so. Section 2(4)(e) provides a defence for the immigrant who proves that he travelled to the United Kingdom never in possession of an immigration document (whether genuine or false).
Judges:
Sir Igor Judge P QBD, Elias, Griffith Williams JJ
Citations:
[2007] EWCA Crim 2332, Times 17-Dec-2007, [2008] 1 WLR 1130
Links:
Statutes:
Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc) Act 2004 2(1)
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Khalif, Regina (on The Application of) v Isleworth Crown Court Admn 31-Mar-2015
The defendant appealed against his conviction under the 2004 Act on his plea of guilty saying that he had been given erroneous legal advice as to section 2(4)(c). . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Crime
Updated: 06 November 2022; Ref: scu.260055
