Supporting aid: what non-lawyers can do to assist asylum seekers
Published: 1 Sep 2016
This guide for non-lawyers was written by Christian Jorgensen, DePaul University and Helena Spector, Clare College, Cambridge University, both of whom are volunteers with the Rights In Exile Programme.
As of mid-2016, close to 65 million individuals have been forced to flee their homes and cross international borders in order to seek refuge. This marks an unprecedented spike in the number of displaced persons around the world. Yet crossing an international border is only the first obstacle, and by no means the most significant, in the increasingly complex process of claiming asylum. The global ‘refugee crisis’ has once again revealed the interpretative fracture between the declaratory ideals of the UNCHR Handbook, which stipulates that “[One] does not become a refugee because of recognition, but is recognised because he is a refugee”, and the increasing number of hoops that would-be refugees must jump through to cohere with this ideal. Refugee until proven otherwise no more: the law does not serve to recognise refugees as much as continually refine the criteria by which a refugee might demonstrate himself thus.
In 2009, under the Ministry of Justice’s Legal Services Commission (LSC), the UK had the highest legal aid spend per capita in the world. Then in April 2013, the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (LASPO) came into force, part of a plan to cut GBP 350m a year from the GBP 2bn annual bill. Although legal aid is still available, the resultant cuts to publicly funded asylum legal services have devastated the availability and quality of assistance: by fixing the legal aid fee regardless of the hours representatives work on cases, firms are incentivised to maximise their number of cases through the doors while minimising the hours spent per case. This has been termed the “sausage factory” effect: law firms are more likely to take on the least-complex cases and process them as rapidly as possible, in turn leaving a proportion of the most-needy clients with no representation. Compounded by the forced closure of small, specialist immigration and asylum firms, in-part the effect of the removal of non-asylum immigration from the scope of legal aid in 2013, asylum lawyers are now overstretched, underfunded and spread far too thinly over an ever-growing pool of potential clients. And the situation we see in the UK is a metonym for the wider shifts in reception and resources proffered to asylum seekers across the developed world. The decreasing number of limited resources and services has created a void in the realm of refugee law and it is important, if not imperative, for refugee advocates and academics to fill this gap.
Non-lawyers cannot provide legal representation or advice. But aid in asylum cases extends beyond solely providing legal assistance; being one of the most diverse and complex areas of law, there are many avenues within requests for asylum where non-legal help can be pivotal. These include assisting lawyers and law firms with taking the testimony of asylum seekers and visiting asylum seekers within detention centers.
Testimony
A refugee’s testimony is arguably the most important part of their case: how the facts are gathered can be pivotal in establishing the legal grounds for granting refugee status to applicants. To qualify for asylum, an asylum seeker must prove that they meet the criteria defining a ‘refugee’ under international law (1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees). This consists of the following elements:
I. Alienage: the asylum seeker is outside their home country.
II. Persecution: the asylum seeker suffered or there is a 10% chance or greater that they will suffer serious harm – more than discrimination or harassment – if forced to return to their home country.
III. Well-founded fear: the asylum seeker fears return based on past persecution or the likelihood of future persecution. This element consists of both subjective and objective components; the applicant subjectively fears persecution, and this fear is substantiated by objective, relevant evidence of conditions in the home country.
IV. On account of an enumerated ground: the harm feared is due to 1. race, 2. religion, 3. nationality, 4. political opinion, or 5. membership in a particular social group.
V. Failure of state protection: the government is unwilling or unable to protect the applicant.
The testimony consists of a series of events, facts and timeframes that address the above criteria. What is the likely harm that the asylum seeker would face upon return to their country? Could the asylum seeker safely live in another part of the country? Why would the government be unable or unwilling to protect them? It is important to note that while it may be clear that somebody is at risk of suffering persecution in their home country, this threat must be by virtue of one of the five statutory grounds. The fifth option, membership in a social group, is the most ambiguous, and its potential breadth makes it a plausible vehicle for many refugee claims. While it can be used successfully in a diversity of issues at the boundaries of refugee law – from homosexuality to female genital mutilation, gender-based violence and coercive family planning policies – the testimony must be used to demonstrate what constitutes both the social group and the asylum seeker’s membership within it.
Due to the extensive amount of information required in a comprehensive testimony, writing time may vary from several hours to several days; the latter particularly so when the refugee’s experience of persecution extends over decades, as is often the case. As the recording of a testimony diverts up much of a lawyer’s time, this is something that non-lawyers can assist with to save limited legal resources, all the more pertinent in the legal aid landscape of payment per case. It is therefore important for non-legal practitioners to understand how to compose a testimony for an asylum case.
The first part of the testimony is designed for the personal and family information of the asylum seeker. This includes the full names and dates of birth of the applicant and their parents. Specific dates and years can often be problematic; when unsure, it is usually best to say he/she was born in about 1950. The second part should be on family history and applicant’s background. Where born, where lived and at what age, religion, education, job, parents’ jobs, social status of family, current status of immediate relatives, and level of contact with family. This should be followed by a detailed chronology of the refugee’s life from birth until their arrival in the host country (including any important events therein).
Key events should then detail all the information relevant to the assertion that the applicant is a refugee under the 1951 Convention. It requires as much detail as possible, including violence, arrests and/or detention. Dates, those involved, physical descriptions, geographical locations, exchanges of words and as much background as possible are crucial here. In the incidence of torture, descriptions of how the torture was carried out, by whom (how many people were involved) and what, if any, words were exchanged. If the applicant was arrested, charged, detained or released from detention, information on the conditions of each should be provided in as much detail as possible. Where there are witnesses to any aspect of the key events, they should be mentioned using full names. It is possible that the applicant’s lawyer might want to get in touch with some of these contacts to provide supporting evidence for the case.
Passage is the penultimate part of the testimony. Details of transit routes to the final destination, including transit through other countries, should be included. All travel documents, visas, dates on exit and entrance are important. Equally important is a description of what happened once the applicant arrived in the host country. Other important details include when and where they applied for asylum, travel companions, place(s) of residence, financial situation and any contacts they have in the host country.
The final section can outline what would likely happen if the applicant were returned to his host country and why he would not be safe in any part of that country. Afterward, the applicant should sign beneath a statement reading: ‘Everything contained in this statement is true and accurate’.
Finally, there are four additional pieces of advice that individuals taking a testimony must bear in mind. Foremost of these being the importance that language and translation plays in the successful transcribing of a refugee’s testimony. It is key that everything an applicant says in his or her testimony is properly understood. If an asylum seeker does not speak proficient English, it is important to find a translator in a language in which the applicant can comfortably express his- or herself; the goal should always be to find a translator for the client’s native tongue and exact dialect.
Secondly, taking a testimony demands a close awareness of what your role is, and is not. Assisting with a testimony is to extract and coherently record the refugee’s own narrative. It is not to query the validity of their statements, nor to feature your own voice or value judgments. Third, patience is essential throughout the process. Recording a life chronology is never an easy task, more so when it involves complex, interrelated and often-traumatic events spanning many years. The applicant may be unable to recall key dates, and will need time to compose themselves before or after discussing difficult experiences. Although a truism, empathy and patience are paramount here. Finally, it is of vital importance to assure to the asylum seeker that, similar to a lawyer, all the information they share with you is confidential and will not be shared nor discussed with anyone outside the necessary parties.
Detention visitation
Individuals outside the legal profession can also advance the process of claiming refugee status by going to visit asylum seekers in detention centers. This provides many benefits. Most of those who are in detention centers are newly arrived refugees with little or no understanding of the asylum process. It is not necessarily guaranteed that detainees are provided with legal representation. Even if this provision is in place, it may take months for an asylum seeker to first meet with their lawyer, months in which they are otherwise stuck behind bars and limited to few channels of communication. It is vital, therefore, that detention visits are used to direct asylum seekers to the relevant support and services they may need, and foremost of these is a lawyer. A U.S. study found that for individuals without a lawyer, only 11% were granted asylum; meanwhile those with a lawyer were granted asylum 51.5% of the time.
In most countries there are many diverse paths to obtaining a legal representation, but there are certain tenets that should be adhered, regardless of where you are. First of these is the fact that, where possible, lawyers specialising in refugee law are best. Previous research has shown that a specialist adviser is likely to provide higher quality representation, regardless of their qualifications. Secondly, is a lawyer willing to work pro bono? It is imperative to find out whether a lawyer will charge any fees and what these fees are prior to connecting them with an asylum seeker, to avoid clients accruing high bills: expensive representation is not necessarily the best; in fact, a lawyer requiring payment may be the worst.
Thirdly, it is important to bear in mind that other asylum seekers often give the worst advice. Individuals in detention centers are likely to receive the majority of their information from other detainees and are more inclined to believe this than that provided by knowledgeable sources. It is therefore important to research legal practitioners to make sure that they are properly qualified and experienced, rather than recommended by another non-qualified individual or group.
You should not underestimate the effect a detention visit can have on an asylum seeker, even if there is no immediate way in which you can assist with their case or provide other forms of tangible assistance. The life of a detainee is frightening and very often without a clear end in sight. The process of applying for asylum appears as, and very often is, illogical and obfuscating. The opportunity to explain their case to somebody in a different predicament, to practice their English, or even to make fractured small talk can make a large difference in breaking up the frustration of detention.
One of the many predicaments of the current misnomer ‘refugee crisis’ is the shortage of obvious heroes. Refugees appear stranded across southern Europe, in Greece, Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey. Those refugees in Ethiopia, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Uganda, Sudan and Thailand, to name just a few, often wait a lifetime for resettlement, for which only a minutiae of camp residents qualify. The cause célèbre of immigration reform and border closures has the potential to radically reconfigure political alliances across North America, Europe and the Middle East & North Africa. Aiding refugees in these situations is almost singularly framed in terms of humanitarian relief and macro transformations to international policy. This should not be so. It can be as simple as sitting down with an asylum seeker and taking a statement, allowing them to tell their story in full – quite possibly for the first time. It can be helping a detainee practice their conversational English. It can be the extension of pastoral assistance and social support in a visitors’ lounge. Aid is by no means insurmountable and something that can only be provided by a select few.
Annex 1: Example of proper testimony presented for the Administrative Court in the UK
Witness statement of AB
I, A B, date of birth 01.01.1983, currently residing at no fixed abode, will state as follows:
1. I came to the UK on 9th September 2001 and claimed asylum on the same day at Heathrow airport. This was refused in 2004.
2. I am a Sierra Leone national. I grew up in a small village with my mother, ABD, my father SB, my older brother I and four younger sisters. My father was a farmer and owned a few cows. We would move the cows around to find good grass for them. If it was far away from the village, my father would sleep there with the cows.
3. I never attended school in Sierra Leone, there was no need as we were just farmers, and there were no schools in my village. My first language is Fulla and I now speak English too through living in the UK for so long.
4. I have never had a birth certificate, and so I have never known for sure how old I am, but I base my age on the date of birth I was given by the Home Office when I came to the UK, and work backwards from there.
5. Armed rebels would come to our village a couple of times every year, I think. My father and the other villagers would give them some animals or money and then the rebels would leave us alone until the next time they needed anything.
6. My brother, I, was older than me, I don’t know how much older he was. He attended school which was a long way away. After he started going to that school I would only see him when he came home at weekends or holidays. I don’t know where the school was or what the name of it was as I never went there. It was my father who took him to school and back when he was younger, but when he got older he would travel there by himself. My father had family who lived near my brother’s school and so Ibrahim would stay with them during the week and come home at weekends and in school holidays.
7. When I was about 13 or 14 years old, my brother disappeared. He had come home to see us for the weekend as usual, and his journey back was to walk from our village for a distance and then catch a bus for the rest of the way. The first we knew that he was missing was the following weekend when he didn’t come home. My father travelled to his relatives to find out what had happened. When my father came back he told us that Ibrahim had not arrived at the relatives after visiting us last weekend. He had not been to school all that week, so he must have disappeared on the journey between our house and my father’s relatives’ house. No-one saw what happened to him but we never saw him again so we believed that he must have been taken by the rebels. To this day I don’t know whether he’s alive or dead. At that time it was a common thing for older boys or girls to disappear in that way.
8. A few years after this, I got married to A who grew up with my family and lived with us. My parents had taken her in after her family was killed. I don’t know how old I was exactly when I married but the usual age to get married in our village was about 16 or 17 years. We were about the same age. We decided we wanted to get married and, as my parents were happy and we were of marriageable age, we were married.
9. Our marriage took place in the middle of the dry season, before Ramadan. This is the traditional time for people to get married in my village. I don’t know why this is our tradition, this is just how I remember things happening there. Our wedding was attended by my family and the other villagers. Then we had a meal afterwards. Because we are such a small village, we don’t have a mosque or an imam there, we do the ceremonies ourselves.
10. A became pregnant soon after we were married and she gave birth to our son, S, about a year after our marriage. He was a healthy boy and I was very happy to be a father.
11. About the time that S had just started walking, I think he was perhaps one-and-a-half or two years old, the rebels came to my village as usual but it was very different. Usually they would just come and get what they needed from us and drive off again.
12. On that day, I was at home with my wife and son and the rest of my family. My father had heard the noise outside and told us all to stay inside to protect us. I could hear the sound of gunshots and men and women shouting and screaming. I realised that people were being shot. I couldn’t see outside as there were no windows in our house.
13. I realised our house was on fire, so we all got out of the house. My father was the first person out of our house and immediately he was shot. I didn’t see where he was shot but he was on the floor and not moving, my mother was with him and crying. She was then shot and couldn’t stand up.
14. The rebels rounded up all of the villagers, it was only a small village and there were no more than about 50 of us living there. The rebels separated us up, I was with my wife and son and they took me away from them and put me with other young men. Anyone who wasn’t a young man was put in another group, all older people, women and children.
15. The soldiers took three or four older men who had been fighting them and hacked their arms off. One had their arm cut off from the top of the arm, and others their forearms.
16. I was put into an open truck with the other young men. I don’t know how many of us there were but we all went in one truck. There were men carrying guns all around us who travelled with us.
17. As we were leaving, all I could see were all the houses on fire, and people lying on the ground, some dead and some alive. The last sight I had of my mother, she was alive, but injured.
18. This was the last time I ever saw my family, including my wife and son. I believe that they must have been killed, as I have tried to trace them through the Red Cross since I have been in the UK. A friend of mine who was sent back to Sierra Leone has tried to find them or to find out what happened to them, but there has was nothing.
19. There were so many killings at that time I have never really believed that my family could have survived. When the rebels captured us I knew in my heart that I would never see my family again.
20. The rebels spoke Krio and some other languages. I didn’t know why I was taken and not killed, but I soon realised that they took me and the other young men to be either slaves or soldiers. We were taken to a camp, where the rebels lived. It was a very long journey, I could only see the sky for the whole journey as the truck had sides, but not a roof, and armed men were all around us in the truck.
21. We stopped once, for a couple of minutes, but all of us captives had to stay in the truck. Then we started going again. I don’t know how far away we went from my village but it was night-time when we got there.
22. The first thing I saw when I got there were lots of soldiers, rebels, going in and out. They were riding in small landrovers and jeeps.
23. When we arrived we were all put into a fenced off area like a big wooden cage. The fencing was really high, maybe three to four metres high, and then there was wood, over the top, not like a roof as there were gaps in it, but like a cage. There were people already in there, about 20 men, young and middle-aged. I could see that most of them had marks on their skin, or were bleeding, like they had been bleeding. None of them spoke to us. We were all scared.
24. The next morning, the soldier came and picked some men to go with them. The next time I was picked out with about ten other men. I was very afraid as I didn’t know if I would be taken to be shot or what I would be doing. We were first given a bowl of rice and water to eat, then taken to the river and ordered to wash the clothes.
25. The following day it was the same, some men were picked out, a few at a time, and this time I was taken out to chop wood for firewood or to make fences.
26. Almost every day was similar, we would be given a small bowl of rice for breakfast, then work all day. We would then be given a small bowl of food in the evening. It wasn’t enough, and I was always hungry. They only wanted to keep us alive to work for them, they didn’t want to give us any more food than that, just for us to stay alive for a while.
27. The cage was disgusting where we were kept. There was an area used for toilet, and it would stink all the time. All of us had to use that area.
28. I slept on the ground in the camp with the other people who were slaves. Some people spoke Fulla, some spoke a different kind of Fulla which I’d never heard before and I didn’t really understand all of it, some spoke Krio and the rest spoke other languages. There was a fence around the area we slept in and there were guards who made sure no-one went out or came in without permission. Living there felt like a village, because there were people of different ages, but everyone there was either a soldier or a slave. If you didn’t do what you were told you would be beaten or have your arm or leg chopped off as punishment.
29. When someone was punished, the soldiers would force everyone to watch as a warning to them. Women would be forced to watch their husbands being beaten, husbands would be forced to watch their wives being raped by soldiers, or people would have limbs chopped off.
30. I was beaten a few times, and I had a baton smashed into the back of my head. I was lucky that I didn’t have anything worse happen to me.
31. I continued with my different duties each day. I would chop wood for building small houses or for firewood, I would do cooking, things like that. One time I was told I could be a soldier and I was given a gun to shoot, but my arms were shaking so much I couldn’t do it. The soldiers laughed at me and said I was a village boy.
32. Life was very hard in the camp. We were not given enough food, and we would be beaten for any small problem, like the soldiers not liking the food we cooked for them. I decided to try and escape. I knew that I could be killed if I was caught, but I couldn’t stay in the camp as I would probably end up being killed there, or forced to be a soldier and killed that way.
33. We were often on the move, we would have to pack up the camp and go to new places. We had to cross rivers on bridges and there were a lot of people to cross. I decided that this would be a good time to escape. So I watched and waited until someone fell over – we were fed so little, and some people would refuse to eat so they could die quicker, that there would always be people collapsing when we travelled – so when the soldiers were looking at the person who fell, I started running. I ran zigzagging between the trees. I was hungry, and had had no food that day, so I was weak and didn’t get far. I had to stop and hide so that they wouldn’t hear my feet against the ground while running, and the rebels found my hiding place. One of them was smacked me in the head with his weapon and I fell to the floor. He kept kicking me as I lay on the floor, hiding my face. My whole body was in pain for a couple of days, but this was a light punishment for them. I don’t know why I wasn’t killed, but I wasn’t.
34. Every morning a few of us would have to go and chop firewood for the day’s cooking. We were watched by guards all the time. One morning there were about 15 of us working on chopping down trees. There were usually about ten guards for this number of workers. We were chopping down a really big tree. It started to fall in a different direction from what we expected and so everyone ran to get out of the way and to be safe. When we started running, the guards started shooting. I wasn’t hit and I was so desperate I just kept running. I didn’t look back. All I was thinking was that I couldn’t get caught again, I felt the only thing that could stop me running away was a bullet. I just fled.
35. The shooting lasted only a few minutes. I realised there was another boy with me, he was another slave. I didn’t see where the guards were, I just carried on running and the he followed me.
36. We ran really far on that first morning, and ran all afternoon. I don’t know how we had the strength, but I knew that I would not get off so lightly if I was caught a second time. When night came we had to stop as it was dark and we didn’t know where we were going. The second day we weren’t running too much as we didn’t have any energy. We didn’t have any food or drink with us so we just had to look for trees with fruit or vegetables that were safe to eat. We had to be careful because if you are running, the soldiers can hear you running so we had to stop and listen for soldiers. His name was I, the same name as my brother.
37. I knew the bush, as I helped my father look after the cows and I was a country boy, I knew how to live in the bush. I knew what plants were safe to eat and we survived.
38. We kept on walking until we saw a city. Ibrahim, who had escaped with me told me that the city was called Kaballa city. We didn’t go into the city as we couldn’t know whether it was a rebel-held city or an Ecomog city. If it was a rebel-held city, we would be captured again and used as slaves. If it was an Ecomog-held city then we would be arrested, stripped and our heads shaved to check for tattoos as rebels usually had tattoos to show their loyalty to their cause. Either way, we would be abused or killed as Ecomog may think we are rebels and kill us anyway if they were there, or the rebels may find out we have escaped and kill us.
39. We saw a lot of dead bodies in the bush, if we saw a lot we would avoid that area because the rebels may not be far away from that place.
40. I wanted to travel to my village to see if my family was still alive, or if anyone was left in the village. My friend said he knew how to get there, so he and I travelled there together. We just had to walk there. It took about three or four days of walking to get there. There was no-one there. All the houses were burned down and destroyed. Nothing was left of the village. I didn’t know how long it was since that day that the rebels had come and taken me away as there was no way of knowing. Everyday had seemed the same in the camps.
41. I went to what was left of my family home. My father had always set aside some money every time he sold some cows in case we needed to escape the country, as the war was getting worse and worse in Sierra Leone. The money was kept in a metal box and placed in a hole he had dug and covered over with dirt. Only my father, mother and I knew where it was kept. I checked and there was a lot of money in there. I didn’t know how much there was as I couldn’t count.
42. I took the money in the bag it had been hidden in and then we left the village immediately because there was nobody there. Almost all the houses had been burned down. There was nothing left of my house. I was afraid of the rebels coming back. The bodies were still lying on the ground, but it was impossible to say who was who anymore. There were black birds which were circling around and eating the bodies for food, I don’t know what the word is in English but in my language I would call them jeega.
43. I didn’t know what to do with the money, I was just thinking to go somewhere safe and start a new life. When we stopped to rest, I asked I to count the money. . Ibrahim could read and count, so I think he must have attended school to have learned that. He said there was six thousand dollars. I didn’t know how much this was. I had never needed to use money before as I had always just helped my father look after the cows. I didn’t know what anything cost or what we could do with the money.
44. I said he knew someone who can help us if we give him money, and then we could be safe. He said the man who could help us lived in a town near Kaballa. So we set off towards Kaballa and then to another place which was near Kaballa. I was afraid to go near Kaballa again, there was danger for us in any city as we had no family or connections there, but I just wanted to try and be safe and so I took the risk of travelling near there again.
45. The agent was well-known, and so from Kaballa we got a lift with someone. This was a risk and I was very afraid but my friend told me we would be okay if we said we are looking for this agent, as he is well-known and so nobody will touch us.
46. When I met the agent I explained my problems to him, that my family had been killed and I wasn’t safe anywhere. He asked me if I had birth certificate, I told him no. He asked me for my father’s birth certificate and I again said no, I had never even heard of birth certificates before at that time. He asked me if I’d ever been to school and I said no. He told me that he could take me out the country to somewhere safe. He said he could take me to England. I had heard about America but I didn’t really know anything about England, but I just wanted to be safe. The agent told me I would have to give him all of the money I had to pay for a passport and a ticket. He took some money from me then, and then he said he would tell me when everything was ready.
47. My friend and I stayed in a house which the agent took us to. We stayed there for maybe about two weeks, then the agent said it was time to go. He told me he needed the rest of the money now, so I gave it to him. The agent then told us to get into a car, the car had blacked-out windows so I couldn’t see in or out. The agent then got in too and the driver drove us to the airport. I don’t remember how long it took, but it was less than a day. I don’t know where the airport was. We just drove up alongside a small plane and the first agent got on the plane and my friend and I also got on the same plane.
48. We landed at another place, I don’t know if we were still in Sierra Leone or another country but we were still in Africa because I could only see black people around. There were some buildings around and a runway. When we arrived there I was taken onto a bigger aeroplane by the first agent. We had to go through and have our passports checked. This is the first time I had seen the passport. I didn’t have the passport at any time, the agent kept hold of it. He was speaking English to the officials, and I couldn’t speak English then so I didn’t know what he was saying at all.
49. I arrived in the UK on 9th September 2001 and claimed asylum on the same day at Heathrow airport. I was sent to accommodation somewhere in London with other people seeking asylum. It was a hotel, I think it was called Tornecliff. I didn’t meet any other Sierra Leoneans there. I met some people who spoke a kind of Fulla similar to mine, so we could communicate. After a short time, three Sierra Leoneans were also brought to this hotel. One of them, HA, could speak English so he helped me out by reading my letters for me, and he came to an interview with me at Heathrow.
50. After this, I was put on a bus to go live in another city and the three other Sierra Leoneans came with me too, we were told we were going to Nottingham. HA had helped interpret for the housing and so we had asked to all be housed together. Soon after we got there they were all refused, and so they had to move out. I was waiting for a year for the decision on my claim, so I stayed in the house. It was in the Meadows area of Nottingham.
51. On the 15th February 2002 I had my substantive interview with the Home Office. I still couldn’t speak any English so there was a Fulla interpreter. Before this I had had meetings with my solicitor from London but the witness statement was never read back to me in Fulla, as I told the Home Office interviewer at the time, my solicitor only gave me a photocopy which was in English. At this interview, the interpreter was difficult for me to understand, he seemed to speak a different kind of Fulla from me. I asked him where he was from, he said Mali.
52. In 2002 I met AW. We first met in 2002 as we were living in the same area and her sisters were friends with a good friend of mine. They would always spend time at my house and Akisha would visit my house with her sisters then. She was interested in becoming a Muslim and so we would talk about my religion.
53. I have had problems with nightmares ever since my family were killed and I was captured. I would wake up in the night sweating and couldn’t go back to sleep. I have had these problems now for about 12 years. This is worse when I am having other problems, like now when I am homeless and I feel like I am a prisoner working in the street.
54. After I had come here I first felt relieved I was safe, but from then I felt guilty for not being able to save my wife and son, or my other family. I went to Red Cross to try and find them but there was no trace of them. I started forgetting what I was saying in mid-sentence. I would even walk past my own house and not realise because I was thinking too much about my family and what was going to happen to me.
55. I was finding life very difficult, as I kept thinking about what had happened to my family, and my village, and what I had seen in the camps, and the dead bodies I had seen in the bush. I can’t count how many dead bodies I have seen in my life, there are too many to count. People there were lucky if they got buried, most would just be left out with no chance to be buried. I also felt bad because, as a Muslim, I knew that the bodies should be buried within a day of death, But I couldn’t do anything, at that time, I could only try and save myself. I didn’t know what to do about all of these thoughts and pictures, so I just tried to forget about it through my life with Akisha and my work.
56. On 21st November 2003 I had my asylum appeal heard at Nottingham however it was refused on 3rd December 2003. In my appeal it was accepted that I am from Sierra Leone. This was never raised as an issue throughout my asylum case.
57. I had been going to college to learn English and then I also started to learn carpentry and study basic IT. I started working after my appeal was refused so I could make a little money, enough to get by, as my NASS support had ended. I know now that it was wrong to work illegally, but I was offered a paid job after doing work experience for two weeks as part of my college course and I wanted so much to be able to support myself. I wanted to be able to provide for AW and look after her. Her parents had separated and her mother had kicked her out of the house about a year before we has started our relationship, so I wanted to help make her life better. She needed my love and support. I worked in a furniture factory for about two years. I left there in 2004 when I lost my finger in one of the machines there.
58. I had a solicitor then who was trying to get compensation for me for the accident at work when my finger was cut off. But the company said that I could only get the compensation when I got my status.
59. In about 2004, I had a letter from the Inland Revenue with a temporary National Insurance number. I showed it to friends and they said that because I had that, it must mean that I had status now, and I was permitted to work. I was very happy then and so I started working as a self-employed carpenter for different firms. I was a good worker and doing well. I was always getting a lot of job offers at this time, I always paid tax and National Insurance. I had been given a temporary National Insurance number in about 2004 and I thought that must mean it was now permitted for me to work.
60. In 2004 AW moved in with me. I felt it was important for her to have a good relationship with her mother, so I took her to her mum’s house, along with one of my friends to help interpret as my English wasn’t great at this time. I helped Akisha and her mum make up, and they started talking again. After this, AW’s mother and siblings would sometimes come visit us at our house.
61. At Ramadan of that year, I told AW she would have to move out during Ramadan as I couldn’t fast and be sleeping with her without being married to her. She wasn’t happy about this, and suggested we got married. I loved AW and wanted to marry her,
62. We decided to get married under Sharia law, as we are both Muslims and therefore this meant to us that we are properly married, but it meant that under UK law AW wasn’t legally married to me. We talked about this and decided that, to protect AW, we would then marry under British law when I got status in the UK.
63. AW and I got married in 2005 in a Sharia ceremony in the house we shared with one of my friends. The Imam of Sneinton mosque married us as I was attending this mosque at this time. I was attending college with a friend of the Imam so he knew me. I was so happy to be married to AW. We went to Blackpool for a few days for our honeymoon. I felt as though my life was starting to get back together. AW was wonderful, I wasn’t good with documents as I was learning to read, so she would help me with all paperwork. She was a wonderful wife.
64. I told AW a little about what had happened in Sierra Leone, but I didn’t tell her everything about the war as I felt she was too young, she was 19 years old when we married. I told her about my wife and son, who I believed were now dead. I didn’t tell her about the camp, or my abduction or the dead bodies. Any time I talk about it, it brings back memories for me.
65. Soon after we were married, AW told me she was pregnant. She was about ten weeks pregnant. I was very, very happy. I had lost my first child and so I was happy to have a new life, a new child. AW was very happy to be pregnant and we started thinking about names. If it had been a girl, AW said she would name it, but that I could name it if it was a boy. I decided that if it was a boy I would name him Ibrahim after my brother. Sadly our baby died when AW was four months pregnant.
66. I was very upset when AW told me that she had miscarried. I had been at work, and came home to find AW crying. I didn’t go to work the next day as I needed to stay home and look after her. I was so sad but in my culture we don’t really show sadness, especially because I am a man. In my culture whatever happens is what Allah has decided. This was His will, no matter how I felt about it.
67. I knew I had no status in the UK then and I was always worried. I thought I had the right to work, though, because of the temporary National Insurance number that I had in my own name. AW and I were married for about a year and a half before I was called in for an interview at the Jobcentre for a permanent National Insurance number. I explained to them that I had a temporary one, and they asked me for ID. I was honest with them and said that I don’t have the right to stay, but I believed I had the right to work because of the temporary NI number I had been issued in my own name.
68. After that, the Jobcentre kept phoning me to bring in my ID, but I just kept telling them that I had no ID. AW was dealing with all my paperwork, and I was sent a letter asking again for my ID. I had a French identity card which a friend had signed for me and given me in London. He said I should use it if I needed to work. I never used the ID card, but it was in my name and AW found it and sent it to the Jobcentre as she believed it was what they were looking for.
69. I was called to go to the Jobcentre to attend another interview and that’s when I was arrested. I was held on remand awaiting trial. I didn’t understand the criminal system at that time and so I pleaded not guilty because the National Insurance number was in my name so I had believed I was working legally. Later, it was explained to me better by my solicitor and so that’s when I pleaded guilty.
70. AW didn’t attend my criminal hearing because K had told her not to. She also didn’t give the address that was where both AW and I were living together, as she didn’t want AW involved in any way. When I was sent to prison, AW moved back in with her mother.
71. When I was in prison it was difficult, but at least I was in Nottingham on remand it was easy for AW to visit me. She would visit me every two or three days then, and if she didn’t visit she would send me a letter.
72. When I was sentenced I was transferred to HMP Ranby in North Nottinghamshire. When I was there, she was only able to visit me twice as she didn’t drive or have a car, and it was very difficult and costly to get there by train and taxi. AW was living on benefits and I knew she couldn’t afford the taxi and I couldn’t keep asking friends to give her money to come and see me. After a few months I told her not to visit, because I knew it was costing her money that she needed to spend on food, and she was also trying to save up for us to be able to live in a flat with just us when I came out of prison.
73. It was so hard for me not to see AW, and I missed her so much. She would write to me every week, sometimes twice a week. We were both looking forward and planning for the day when I would be released and we could be together again.
74. But in December 2006 I was given a notice of deportation. This was a shock to me as I didn’t realise that could happen, I thought I would just serve my sentence and be released. As soon as I received the notice from the Home Office I called AW to tell her about it. She was crying and so upset. For me it was very tough as well because I was scared to return to Sierra Leone and I couldn’t bear to think of being separated from AW for any longer.
75. I was also confused, because there was the wrong name, wrong date of birth and wrong nationality on the notice of deportation for me. I thought I would be sent to Ghana, so I wrote to the Home Office to tell them that I wasn’t from Ghana, I was from Sierra Leone.
76. When I finished my sentence, I moved from criminal to immigration detention in the same prison. For me, it seemed as though there was no change. A few weeks later I was transferred from HMP Ranby to HMP Nottingham, and so AW was able to come and visit me again easily. I was so happy to see her but I was also so sad as I thought it would be the last time I ever saw her.
77. I appealed against my notice of deportation in December 2006. I tried to find a solicitor to help me, and I was visited by Paragon Law in prison however there was a problem in getting paperwork to them to show what money I had in order for them to get Legal Aid. Unfortunately there was not enough time to do this, and they couldn’t represent me in my deportation appeal as the date was very soon.
78. My appeal was dismissed on 25 January 2007. I didn’t have an interpreter at this hearing, despite not speaking English very well then. AW came to the hearing to support me. In the determination, the judge accepted that I am from Sierra Leone.
79. I thought that I would just be deported straight away, and I didn’t want AW to be caught up in all of the terrible things that were happening in Sierra Leone. I didn’t have any money and AW wasn’t working, I knew I couldn’t afford to buy her a plane ticket and anyway I felt that Sierra Leone would not be a safe place for her. I was so stressed that I told her she shouldn’t visit me any more. I told her to move on and that she should find someone else. AW was very unhappy with me saying this. She was crying and saying I’d destroyed her life. I told her that I didn’t know how long I would be detained, and I could be deported at any time, and I couldn’t have that stress in her life.
80. I started to have trouble sleeping and I couldn’t sleep properly for six months. I had always wanted to look after AW, and I knew that I could no longer do this, so I felt the best thing I could do for her was to give her freedom from me and my life.
81. It was around this time I took an overdose of painkillers. I was given a week’s worth of painkillers at a time by the prison doctor, to help with the pain in my leg. I had been given my week’s supply and I just looked at the tablets and I felt out of control and it all came to me at once that I had lost my family and my first wife and son, I had just lost my second wife and she had miscarried. I felt that it must be me who was causing all of this in some way. I couldn’t cope any more so I swallowed all the tablets at once.
82. My cellmate knew I was very distressed and when he saw that I had no tablets left he must have realised I had taken them all. He didn’t say anything to me but an officer came and asked me where my tablets where. I was taken to the prison doctor where I was checked over, and then an ambulance took me to the Queen’s Medical Centre. When we got there I vomited. The doctor checked me over and said that I would be alright because I had been sick, so I was taken straight back to the prison.
83. After I got back to prison, I didn’t eat for two or three days, again because of the stress. There was an Imam and a priest who came to visit me after that, and some other people, nurses and doctors at the prison, came to talk to me. I was just so upset that I couldn’t think of any other thing to do other than taking those tablets. I just needed to do something. I didn’t seem to be able to have any control over my life. My life is just bad luck, there was no point to me surviving or living.
84. Someone had contacted AW, and she booked a visit to see me. This made me start eating again. She came with her sister and two brothers. This was the last time I saw AW for two years.
85. After three months immigration detention in HMP Nottingham, I was then moved to Oakington detention centre, near Cambridge, which I stayed at for about a year and a half. When I was taken to embassies, I would be held at other detention centres near London, Harmondsworth and Tinsley House. I was also held at Campsfield, near Oxford, for a time.
86. One of the worst times for me was when I was in Oakington detention centre, when I was sharing a room with six men. I didn’t know what was going to happen to me. Sometimes I would go to sleep and there would be people sharing my room, I would wake up in the morning and they would be gone, and I wouldn’t know where they had been taken. I lived in constant fear of being deported without warning.
87. I felt like I had no control over my life, I didn’t know what would happen to me. The other time was when my marriage to AW ended, I felt I was being punished twice.
88. I saw doctors a lot when I was in detention. I got the flu a lot because there were so many new people coming in all the time. I always seemed to be ill. There wasn’t anyone I could see about the way I was feeling, the doctors would just give us paracetamol. I did ask about something to help my head, and the way I was feeling, but there wasn’t anything. Everyone was stressed in there.
89. While in detention I did courses in IT and English. But after several months I couldn’t continue with this because of my mental health problems. I did have some certificates but these have been lost when my file was transferred after the closure of Refugee and Migrant Justice. I always tried to study as this was the only time that I felt my mind was free, when in detention.
90. During my time in detention I was taken to the Sierra Leone embassy by UKBA three times, they also took me to the embassy of Guinea. One time, they took me from Oakington to Dover where I was interviewed by Liberian authorities.
91. When I was rejected by the Sierra Leone embassy, I felt very bad. I had been refused by the UK and, although I was still afraid to return to Sierra Leone I couldn’t take living in the detention centre any longer. I needed something to happen. If I was returned to Sierra Leone I had planned to immediately make my way to another country. I could still remember so vividly what had happened to me in Sierra Leone, and I was afraid that this could happen again. Added to this, I had no-one left for me in Sierra Leone, I believe all my family have been killed. I have no home. But now for the Sierra Leone embassy to tell me that I wasn’t even from there, I was not expecting this. It felt strange. I no longer had a country.
92. When the UKBA started taking me to all the other embassies, to be honest I thought it was odd, in a way, as I knew which country I was from. But I co-operated as I didn’t want to look like I was causing problems. Even after I did this, I was told that I hadn’t co-operated. I felt I was being treated like a child. I felt I didn’t have any rights, I just had to go where I was told, and stay in the detention centre the rest of the time.
93. After a while, I stopped reading the letters which came from UKBA as I felt they were making me go crazy. The letters would make it seem as if I am lying to them, because they never accept that I’m from Sierra Leone, and keep telling me I must be from somewhere else. I felt I could no longer be certain of anything. I felt that anything I said would cause more problems for me, like when I was asked if I speak French. I told them no, but still for a year they tried to get me to speak French.
94. I never used to read my monthly report, as I found it too stressful, so I don’t know what was put in them. The Home Office had Fulla interpreters for me for two years when I first came to the UK, for my asylum interviews and appeal, and yet at this time they were trying to say that I spoke another language. For most of my bail hearings I had a Fulla interpreter, until my English was good enough that I said I didn’t want an interpreter any more. Yet still the Home Office tried to tell me I was not from Sierra Leone.
95. I applied for immigration bail several times from Oakington, more times than I can remember, sometimes using a solicitor, sometimes by myself. But nothing seemed to work.
96. It was around this time that UKBA notified me that I was to be interviewed by them in Fulla to test my language. I complied with this but I thought it was a bit strange that they would do this as they had on record that for many years they had to have Fulla interpreters for me as I couldn’t speak English. I felt frustrated as they should already know that my first language is Fulla, they shouldn’t need to test me on that. I felt like I was going round in circles.
97. I now started asking people for a recommendation on how to get bail. One of my friends took me to a Nigerian man in detention, this man read my papers and helped me and advised me how to show UKBA that I am co-operating. He suggested I write to all the embassies. He helped me contact BID, Bail for Immigration Detainees. They took on my case and I think it was only a month or so later that I was finally released. It was now November 2008. I had been detained for 23 months after my criminal sentence had ended.
98. Although I had been hoping for almost two year, when it finally happened I felt like a child. I was panicking. I had been inside for so long and it seemed everything had changed from when I had gone in. I felt it was better to be released, but I still felt under so much pressure and felt so anxious because I knew I still had a deportation order. I was released but my situation was still the same.
99. I was sent by UKBA to NASS accommodation in Newcastle where I didn’t know anyone. My tagging was very strict. I could only be outside of the house for four hours in the morning and four hours in the afternoon. I was reporting to UKBA three times a week.
100. I was in Newcastle for about six months. One time I was speaking on the phone to one of my friends I used to work with, PL. He and his dad had done the tiling at the same leisure centre that I was doing joinery work at in Loughborough. We had stayed in touch and he had called me often when I was in detention. He was a very good friend and, when I had been detained, he had come to Nottingham to collect all my belongings and taken them to his house to look after them for me.
101. PL was living in Leyland, a village near Preston. His mother was moving to Gambia, so he asked me to come and live with him as he wanted to help me and I could have his mother’s empty room. I asked permission from my UKBA caseowner AH, and he agreed to me living there. When I got there, the tag was put on me there too. I was reporting twice a week in Preston.
102. PL used to drive me the long journey from Leyland to Preston twice a week so I could report. I couldn’t ask him to keep doing this for me as he wasn’t working, and he couldn’t afford to keep looking after me and paying for the petrol to drive me there so frequently. I wasn’t receiving any NASS payments so I couldn’t contribute in any way. After about four weeks we talked about it and he said he would have to ask me to move out as he could no longer afford to have me there.
103. I could see that this was difficult for him, so although I was sad, I realised that it wasn’t working. PL was sad too as he had wanted to help me.
104. I called my UKBA caseowner AH in Liverpool to tell him that I would have to move, but that I didn’t know where I would go. He said it was okay and just to tell him a correspondence address as soon as I had one. I said I would do so.
105. I went to a nearby city, Blackburn, to see if I could get NASS accommodation there, but they said I would have to come back in a week. I couldn’t wait that long, so I went to Manchester. It was Friday, they told me to come back on the Monday morning, but again, I had nowhere to stay, so I took a train to Nottingham where I still had friends. I only had ten pounds on me which PL had given me, so I paid for a ticket to Sheffield only. I was lucky and I didn’t get asked for a ticket so I got out at Nottingham with no problems.
106. When I got to Nottingham, it was the afternoon. I went to my estranged wife AW’s house in the Meadows. She was living back there with her mother. I didn’t have anything, I didn’t have a phone so I couldn’t have let her know that I was coming. When I got there, AW, her mother KW and AW’s six siblings were all outside in the front garden. I hadn’t been able to let them know that I was coming to see them so they were shocked to see me. I could tell that AW was pleased to see me but that KW wasn’t. KW hadn’t approved of me since I had been sent to prison although we’d get on very well before that. Akisha’s brothers and sisters were all hugging me, and it was nice to see everyone again. I asked if I could use their address to receive letters, and KW said I could, as I was expecting a letter from UKBA to tell me to report.
107. That night I stayed at a friend’s house in the Meadows. He let me stay there for two nights. I called my caseowner again to give him AW’s address of 98 Sandy Close, the Meadows, Nottingham, for him to send letters to. My caseowner told me that I will need to report three times a week at Central Police station, Nottingham city centre, every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday in the mornings, but that he will send me a letter to confirm.
108. I waited for about a week for this letter, and I asked KW about the letter, but she said that no letters had arrived for me. I was worried about getting into trouble so I went to the police station to report anyway. I explained to the officers there and gave the police my caseowner’s name. They said they had received a fax and allowed me to report there, they also said that it looked like a letter had already been sent to me on the same day as their fax. I explained that I hadn’t received it.
109. The same day, I was in town and saw one of AW’s brothers, G. He came up to me and told me that his mother had received a letter for me but hadn’t given it to me. He told me not to let her know that he had said anything to me. I agreed not to. I felt sad about this but I wasn’t surprised as when I was in prison had been telling me that her mother wasn’t happy with me, and no longer supported mine and AW’s relationship.
110. After I started signing, it took about four weeks until I got NASS section 4 support reinstated. Before the NASS section 4 got going, I had four friends who let me sleep at their homes, but none would let me use their address for correspondence so I couldn’t get the tagging equipment installed anywhere to comply with curfew for those four. The tagging equipment was still at PL’s house in Leyland. I told my UKBA caseowner where it was, but it didn’t get transferred to Nottingham. I don’t know why this was. I kept my tag on anyway as I didn’t want to get into any trouble.
111. After I got my section 4 support again, I went to Refugee Forum and talked to BW, who I’d known since about 2004. He referred me to Refugee and Migrant Justice in Nottingham in order to get further legal representation to help with my immigration case. I don’t know what date it was but the weather had turned cold so I think it was autumn or winter 2009. My representative was called AC. When she left about six months later, a new caseworker called Eric took over my case. I kept my tag on until my caseowner AH told me to cut it off and take it to my representative at Refugee and Migrant Justice for them to forward to him by post.
112. Around this time I received a letter from my UKBA caseowner telling me to make an appointment with the Guinea embassy in London. I called the embassy to make an appointment but I was told that UKBA needed to send a letter to the embassy before they would book an appointment for me. I rang my caseowner and told him about this. He told me that he would send me a letter with an appointment from the embassy. I have never received this letter.
113. At this time, my RMJ caseworker E was still working on my case and trying to get a Sierra Leone expert to meet with me for an expert report on myself and my language to show that I am from Sierra Leone. The funding was first refused and Eric applied for funding again. Unfortunately RMJ closed a short time later in June 2010. I had felt that maybe now things would get better with RMJ, but then suddenly this hope was taken away from me. I found out that RMJ was closing when I went there one day to see my caseworker Eric and I was told that this was the last day and that the office would be closing the next day. When I was told that I felt so low. I didn’t know what to do. My case is so complicated it takes a long time for a new representative to understand my case and I didn’t have the strength to find a new one immediately and start all over again.
114. I was attending college and I felt the best thing was to try and concentrate on that and then try and sort my case out again when I had the strength to face it.
115. About a week later, I got a letter from RMJ to say that my file would be transferred to a new representative. However I didn’t hear anything for a while. I eventually got a letter from French and Co, saying that they now had my file, but my friends were recommending a different firm for me called First Call Immigration which was a private firm. A friend paid £100 for me to have an appointment there so I asked French and Co to give me a copy of my file and took it to First Call.
116. The solicitor I saw at First Call told me he didn’t want to read my file, and that my best option was not to do anything as my name was in legacy and I would definitely be granted status under legacy. I knew that it wasn’t this easy because of the deportation order for me. Lots of my friends were giving me advice and telling me to go to Liverpool to hand in my papers so in December 2010, between Christmas and New Year, I went to Liverpool with some certificates and documents. I didn’t tell my solicitor what I was doing as he had said he didn’t want to do any work on my case and also I couldn’t afford any more appointments with him.
117. I was hoping to hear back from the Home Office about the papers I’d taken to Liverpool. BW at Refugee Forum had referred my case to Paragon Law and, in April 2011, they agreed to represent me under legal aid, my representative there was PS. I had received a letter from the Home Office asking for more papers for my fresh claim, and so Peter wrote to the Home Office on my behalf.
118. Peter recommended I wait for six months in order to give the Home Office time to respond. In November 2011 I received a letter from the Home Office saying that my NASS support was going to be stopped. With the help of Refugee Action I appealed this decision.
119. The judge told me at the NASS hearing that I had lost and so, when I came back to Nottingham from London, I packed my things and left the house. I was now homeless again. I had a girlfriend at this time, D, and I stayed at her place in the Meadows for about four weeks, then she asked me to move out because she couldn’t afford to have me living there as she was a student and not working at the time. So I moved out and stayed at some friends’ houses.
120. Sadly, D and I broke up in September 2012. D has mental health problems, she was bi-polar and this meant she could get very angry and shout at me. She would also be very controlling. She would say that I’m only with her because I haven’t got status. This was also what AW would say sometimes. This is very hurtful for me as I loved AW, and I cared very deeply for D. It got to the point where I couldn’t take it anymore.
121. I have been homeless since I lost my NASS accommodation on 23 November 2011. I have been staying at different people’s houses since then. I don’t know how many. Sometimes I’ll only stay for one night, sometimes longer, but I always have to keep moving as I can’t pay them for bills or anything. I can’t help in any way. Most people are in a difficult financial situation right now, I’m a burden to them, so I move on quickly so I’m not adding to their difficulties too much.
122. Sometimes I have nowhere to stay and so I go to Sneinton mosque and try to sleep there. Sometimes I have to just sleep on the street.
123. I get weekly food parcels from Refugee Forum, and sometimes I’m given food from friends. I’m now known to my friends as being able to fix things, and being good with my hands, so now sometimes my friends will give me food in exchange for helping them with their house, like putting up a shelf or something.
124. My mental health problems have got much worse since I have been in the UK. I first realised something was seriously wrong with me in about 2003. I was thinking too much, I could only think about my immigration problems. I started forgetting what I was saying, mid-sentence. I would even walk past my own house and not realise I was there because I was thinking too much about what was going to happen to me.
125. It was around this time that I started feeling paranoid too. I lost a lot of friends through this. Some people knew I was stressed but when I tried to be honest with them, explaining what my problems were, they wouldn’t want to be around me anymore. I felt like an outcast. I can’t work, I can’t do anything, I don’t have the right to do anything. It’s hard for people to be around someone who needs help all the time. I used to have a lot of friends but I would have to hide my life story from them. People would talk about me and call me “asylum seeker” as an insult. I would be scared by this and I wouldn’t want to be seen in this way, so this led to me leaving classes or changing classes at college. I was too afraid to have people know about my background and my immigration status because whenever I explained my story to someone I then lost them as a friend.
126. The last eleven years has been very stressful. The one bright hope I had was when AW and I were together, and especially for the brief time that she was pregnant with my child. I feel the stress of my immigration matters has taken over my life, my mind is never quiet.
127. I have tried to get help for my mental health problems. I have seen my GP and I used to see a counsellor every two weeks. I did a stress relief one day course at college. In prison I was told to do more exercise instead of taking medicine. But since being homeless I can’t exercise properly. If you’re exercising you need to have a place to shower and have something to eat to give you energy and some nights I don’t even know where I’m sleeping.
128. I feel like my life is cursed. I can’t seem to do anything to change my situation. I’m not living I’m only trying to survive. I wake up in the morning and don’t know if I’m going to eat today, or where I’m going to sleep. I feel like a prisoner when I’m walking down the street. I have no freedom to do anything.
129. I’m forced to keep moving on all the time. I have no life, no family, no future. Everyone needs to wake up in the morning and have work to do. Sometimes I’ll just be walking down the street and I don’t know where I’m going. I just keep walking because I’ve got nothing else to do. I have nothing. Even my own country has rejected me.
130. If I had been granted status, my life would be very different from what it is now. I am still so afraid of being returned to Sierra Leone. Before I was kidnapped, I had never even thought that I might leave my country. I had never left my village before I was captured. But now I have seen so much violence and death in my country, and because of that and what has happened to me in the UK I have now suffered mental health problems for more than ten years. If I was returned to Sierra Leone I don’t think I would manage there. The war has finished now, but my memories of it will never go away. I was a young man when I came here, and I’ve now been here for more than ten years.
131. I have lost my family, I have lost everyone. I want to forget about what has happened in my life and move on, but I can’t, because the Home Office won’t believe that I am telling the truth, and I have always told the truth about who I am.
132. I fled my country in 2001 when I was about 18 years old. I am now 29 years old. I feel I have been living in the dark for all this time. The last action the Home Office took to deport me was in 2008, five years ago. The Home Office has tried to get several countries to accept me, but none will. I don’t know why my country won’t accept me, but I maintain that I am still afraid to return.
133. I therefore ask the Home Office grants me status in the UK, as I cannot continue living the way I am now.
I confirm that this statement has been read by me and that the contents are true and accurate to the best of my knowledge.
SIGNED: A B