England and Wales High Court (Administrative Court) Decisions

1. I have before me an application made pursuant to leave granted on the 12th March 2001 by Mantell LJ for an order quashing a decision made by the Secretary of State on the 24th October 2000 to refuse leave to the applicant Mr James Yankey to enter this country pursuant to paragraphs 320(3) and (19) of the Immigration Rules. These paragraphs read as follows:
"320 In addition to the grounds of refusal of entry clearance or leave to enter set out in Parts 2-8 of these Rules ... the following grounds for the refusal of entry clearance or leave to enter apply:
Grounds on which entry clearance of leave to enter the United Kingdom is to be refused.
...
(3) failure by the person seeking entry to the United Kingdom to produce to the immigration officer a valid national passport or other document satisfactorily establishing his identity and nationality; ...
(19) where, from information available to the immigration officer it seems right to refuse leave to enter on the ground that exclusion from the United Kingdom is conducive to the public good..."

2. The Secretary of State refused leave on two grounds: (1) the passport at all material times held and used by the applicant was to the knowledge of the applicant a forgery, and on this ground it was conducive to the public good to refuse the applicant leave to enter; and (2) the applicant when seeking leave to enter the United Kingdom on the 24th October 2000 had failed to produce to the immigration officer a valid national passport or other document satisfactorily establishing his identity and nationality. The applicant challenges the decision on both grounds on the basis that the decisions were unreasonable and wrong in law.

3. The applicant claims that he first arrived in this country on the 19th May 1994 when he was given six months leave to enter. (Remarkably in the only sworn statement made in support of this application his solicitor states that the applicant first arrived in 1996, a statement which has never been corrected and which still stands). On the 22nd July 1994, he says that he was given a two year extension as a working holidaymaker. On the 11th October 1995 he married a British citizen present and resident in the UK (from whom he is now separated) and on the 19th February 1996 he was granted a twelve month leave to remain as the spouse of a British citizen. On the 8th May 2000 the applicant was granted indefinite leave to remain as the spouse of a British citizen. On the 18th October 2000 the applicant travelled to Italy on a one week holiday. On his return on the 24th October 2000 he was refused entry on arrival from Italy, but on the 26th October 2000 he was granted temporary admission with restrictions on residence and employment.

4. The critical document in this case is the applicant's Sierra Leone passport. Its apparent date of issue was the 5th June 1992. It contains stamps recording the grant of leave to enter this country. On his entry into the United Kingdom on the 24th October 2000 the immigration officer after examining the passport formed the view that the whole document was a forgery. The applicant challenged that it was a forgery, and accordingly Mr Edward Whalley, of the National Forgery Section of the Immigration Services, was instructed to examine the passport and make a report on it. This is set out in his witness statement. In a fully and careful analysis Mr Whalley expressed the view that, whilst the stamps recording the various grants of leave to enter in the passport are not counterfeit, the passport had been dismantled, reassembled and restitched and contained counterfeit end papers and laminate. The end papers are the pages which affect and relate to the applicant.

5. The statement of Mr Whalley is clear and convincing. An examination of the passport is enough to disclose (as it disclosed to the immigration officer) the questionable features of the passport, and the expert testimony of Mr Whalley plainly establishes beyond question the forgery.

6. The question raised by the applicant's counsel is whether it is also established that the applicant at all times knew that the passport was a forgery. In my view this likewise is fully established. The inference of knowledge can sufficiently be drawn from the fact of possession and use of the passport by the applicant, the refusal by the applicant when interviewed by the immigration officer on the 16th October 2000 to answer any question as to where or how he obtained the passport and the decision of the applicant to proffer no evidence in this regard or at all on this application. It is of course possible for a possessor of a forged passport to proffer an innocent explanation for his use and possession of it, but no effort has in this case been made to proffer any explanation. It is not enough for counsel to state that the applicant can have had no motive for using a forged passport. Whether or not he did have a motive and what that motive may have been are matters of speculation. It is unnecessary and unhelpful to speculate where the applicant has deliberately maintained silence as to the relevant matters on which he could shine a light, but declines to do so.