Justice First Case Study

Reza

Reza entered the UK on the 21st December 2006. He travelled several arduous months through treacherous terrain as he made his journey from Iran to the UK to seek sanctuary. His Asylum claim was ultimately refused several times up until 2013, where he was granted 30 months of discretionary leave.

He has been previously a long-term sufferer of opioid addiction. He struggles severely with his mental health and managing day to day tasks. This culminated in him failing to renew his leave to remain which resulted in his leave expiring, and this is where the client then re-engaged with Justice First in 2019. Lucie supported the client with a Fresh Claim based largely on his Family Life – he was granted 30 months.

In May 2022, Reza approached us in advance of his visa expiry for help with the extension application. Dean advised based on the client’s circumstances of being unemployed and in receipt of public funds, that it would be best to apply to the Home Office for a fee waiver, to request that they waive the full costs involved in the visa extension process (£2,608). Once the fee waiver has been decided on, the client would then have 10 working days to make the extension application.

The fee waiver was applied for based on the information and evidence Reza provided. Unfortunately, as the Home Office conduct credit reference searches, they found an additional bank account which Reza had not disclosed to us. He explained this was due to embarrassment as he has a gambling addiction. Despite the prospect of being professionally embarrassed, we decided to continue representation due to Reza’s vulnerable nature and based on our overarching ethos at Justice First.

On the night before the deadline for providing the evidence, Reza provided Dean with this evidence. Dean worked tirelessly into the early hours of the morning drafting detailed representations to put Reza  in the best position possible to be granted a fee waiver. The overriding argument we needed to make was that Reza could not have saved the fees and that he has not intentionally disposed of assets or spent his money recklessly. Furthermore, any winnings from his gambling addiction could not be relied upon as secure and reliable income.

This meant being creative, including gaining evidence from the client’s online betting account, including the net deposit information which showed that the client had a loss of over £12,000 throughout the lifetime of the betting account.

We are happy to confirm that we were recently informed that the fee waiver had been granted in full and Dean has is currently in the process of preparing Reza’s visa extension application. This case demonstrates unequivocally how important it is that we exist. In private practice, the Lawyers would more likely than not have withdrawn representation from Reza due to withholding vital information. Although it was not an ideal situation, we found a way to work through it and we knew that without us, Reza’s leave would have undoubtedly lapsed again, putting him right back at the beginning of another 10-year route to settlement.