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Mr EW

Published:

Mr EW arrived at Heathrow Airport in August 2013. He did not have a valid passport when he approached Immigration Control to claim asylum.

Mr EW stated that he had left Syria a month earlier because of the war and because of verbal threats he had received from the Assad regime. He had been smuggled by car from Syria to Turkey where he remained for a month before flying to the UK.

Mr EW was subsequently charged with failing to produce a satisfactory immigration document. He was advised by lawyers that he had no defence and pleaded guilty at Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court in August 2013. He was sentenced to eight weeks’ imprisonment.

In December 2013, Mr EW was granted asylum with five years’ leave to remain. The CCRC received an application for review of Mr EW’s conviction in October 2014.

Following review, the CCRC concluded that Mr EW had a statutory defence to the charge on which he was convicted available to him under section 2(4)(c) of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2000, namely a “reasonable excuse” for failing to produce a valid immigration document.

The legal advice provided to Mr EW deprived him of that defence. On the evidence available, it was likely that the defence would have succeeded.

Consequently, there was a real possibility the Crown Court would allow Mr EW to vacate his guilty plea and in all the circumstances would not uphold the conviction.

The CCRC referred the conviction in March 2015.

The Crown Court quashed the conviction in December 2015.