Margo Munro Kerr represented the Appellant THR whose conviction for possession of a false identity document with improper intent was quashed by the Court of Appeal.

The Appellant is a Kurdish asylum seeker from Turkey who fled via Greece, Italy and Ireland to the UK. She was apprehended by police officers disembarking from the Belfast ferry at Liverpool and presented a false Polish identity document.

The issues at trial were (1) did she present the Polish ID with an improper intention?  (2) did she claim asylum as soon as reasonably practicable on arrival in the UK? (3) could she reasonably have claimed asylum before reaching the UK?

The Appellant gave evidence at trial that she couldn’t stay in Greece, Italy, or Ireland because she was scared of refoulement to Turkey. She said she panicked when giving the police officer her ID document in Liverpool. She couldn’t remember when she claimed asylum but she thought it might have been a few months later.

At appeal, fresh evidence was relied on including (1) a psychiatric report by Dr Stania Kamara saying that she had complex PTSD, that she would have needed reasonable adjustments at trial, and that her explanation of panicking was clinically plausible (2) a witness statement from barrister Stephen Knight who spoke to the Appellant in a personal capacity while she was in custody and observed her communication to be deteriorating and (3) a report from Marion Bouchetel of the Legal Centre Lesvos supporting the Appellant’s account that Greece was routinely refouling Kurdish asylum seekers to Turkey in early 2023. It was also submitted that evidence that the Appellant had claimed asylum the day she arrived was missed by everyone at trial.

Read more about the case here.

Margo Munro was instructed by Ruby Breward and Zachary Whyte at Sperrin Law.