Ms O

Ms O, a Ugandan national, had been arrested after presenting at Heathrow Airport immigration control to claim asylum in the UK without a valid passport. She claimed asylum on the basis that she would face political persecution if returned to Uganda.

Ms O was subsequently prosecuted for failing to have an immigration document at an asylum interview and, on legal advice, she pleaded guilty at Croydon Magistrates’ Court in January 2006 to an offence under section 2(1) of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants) Act 2004. She was sentenced to two months’ imprisonment.

Ms O was granted asylum in the UK in April 2008. A tribunal found that Ms O’s account of her life being at risk because of her political beliefs and the impossibility of her obtaining a genuine passport for fear of alerting the Ugandan authorities to her whereabouts was credible, and she was subsequently granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK by the Home Office.

The CCRC received an application for review of the conviction in March 2016.

Following review, the CCRC concluded that Ms O had a statutory defence to the charge on which she was convicted, namely a “reasonable excuse”.

Had this defence been run at trial it would probably have succeeded but the legal advice provided to Ms O deprived her of that defence.

Consequently, there was a real possibility the Crown Court would agree to vacate Ms O’s guilty plea and then order a stay of proceedings or, if she was re-prosecuted, that she would be acquitted.

The CCRC referred the conviction in March 2018.

The Crown Court quashed the conviction in July 2018.