Mr FZ

Mr FZ, a Syrian citizen of Kurdish ethnicity, arrived at Heathrow Airport in the winter of 2013 and immediately claimed asylum. He approached a UK Boarder Force Officer and asked for help; he could not produce a valid passport but did provide a Syrian ID card and was detained.

In interview, Mr FZ stated that he was afraid to return to Syrian as he believed the Syrian regime would execute him for evading military service. He explained how he had fled the war in Syria and paid an agent to help him get from Syria to Lebanon by bus, then on to Dubai by plane.

In Dubai he was supplied with an EU Passport before boarding a plane to the UK. During the flight he followed the agent’s instructions to destroy the EU passport and arrived at Heathrow with no travel documents.

He was charged with failure to produce an immigration document, contrary to the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc) Act 2004. On legal advice, he pleaded guilty and received a sentence of 12 weeks’ imprisonment.

In January 2014, Mr FZ was granted asylum with five years’ leave to remain in the UK.

The CCRC received an application for review of the conviction in January 2019.

Following review, the CCRC concluded that Mr FZ had a statutory defence to the charge on which he was convicted available to him under section 2 of the 2004 Act, namely a “reasonable excuse”.

The legal advice provided to Mr FZ 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 FZ to vacate his guilty plea and in all the circumstances would not uphold the conviction.

The CCRC referred the conviction in June 2020.

The Crown Court later quashed the conviction.