Mr EZ

Mr EZ, an Iranian national, arrived at Manchester Airport in February 2009 on a flight from Brussels. He approached an immigration officer and presented a Danish passport. Home Office checks showed that the passport had been reported as lost or stolen in March 2006.

Mr EZ admitted that the passport was not his. He told immigration officials that he had left Iran five months earlier and he had travelled through several countries using various false passports provided by agents to whom he had paid in order to help him leave Iran.

He stated that he was fleeing the country because he believed the authorities there were looking for him in connection with a public demonstration in July 2008 and because of his father’s political activities.

Mr EZ was arrested and subsequently charged with possessing a false identity document with intent contrary to section 25(1) of the Identity Cards Act 2006.

On the advice of a solicitor he pleaded guilty at Manchester Crown Court in March 2009 and was sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment.

In 2012, the Home Office granted Mr EZ refugee status with five years’ leave to remain. He applied to the CCRC for a review of his conviction in August 2013.

Following review, the CCRC concluded that Mr EZ had a statutory defence to the charge on which he was convicted available to him under section 31 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, namely a “reasonable excuse” for not producing a genuine immigration document.

The legal advice provided to Mr EZ appeared to have deprived him of that available defence.

On the evidence available it was probable that the defence would have succeeded and, as a result, there was a real possibility that the Court of Appeal would set aside Mr EZ’s guilty plea and conclude that in all the circumstances it should not uphold the conviction.

The CCRC referred the conviction in July 2015.

The Court of Appeal upheld the conviction in May 2016.