Ghanaian wins right to stay in Britain after staging marriage

Francisca Boateng wins immigration appeal as union with German man ruled long enough to allow her to stay in UK.

A Ghanaian tourist was granted the right to live in Britain under Brexit marriage rules – even though she did not attend her own wedding.

Francisca Boateng, 42, won her immigration appeal after claiming that her “proxy” marriage to a German citizen living in Britain had lasted long enough to qualify her to remain in the UK.

Ms Boateng had come on holiday to Britain where she met Fatao Sualihu, a German citizen, before returning home to divorce her husband at the time.

She then organised the “proxy” wedding in Kumasi, Ghana in December 2018 that neither she nor her new husband attended.

She moved to the UK with her two children to join her new husband, but the marriage broke down within 15 months and she instituted divorce proceedings, which concluded in January 2022.

Because the marriage lasted three years from the date of the proxy wedding, she was entitled to claim UK residency under the terms of the Brexit deal’s EU settlement scheme.

This was because her husband, as a German national, was eligible for settled status, enabling her to claim the same right to residency.

This was despite the fact that they did not formally wed and sign a marriage certificate until three weeks later, which would have put them below the three-year time limit.

The case, disclosed in court papers, has sparked fresh criticism of the immigration tribunal system following a series of exposes by The Telegraph of cases where migrants have gained the right to remain or avoided deportation in controversial circumstances.

They include an Albanian criminal who avoided deportation after claiming his son had an aversion to foreign chicken nuggets, and a Pakistani paedophile, who was jailed for child sex offences but escaped removal from the UK because it would be “unduly harsh” on his own children.

On Wednesday, the issues raised by the cases dominated Prime Minister’s Questions. Sir Keir Starmer branded a tribunal decision to allow a Palestinian family to live in the UK as “wrong” after they applied through a scheme for Ukrainian refugees.

He said Parliament, rather than judges, should make the rules on immigration and pledged that Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, would work on closing the loophole.

There are a record 34,169 outstanding immigration appeals, largely on human rights grounds, that threaten to hamper Labour’s efforts to fast-track the removal of thousands of illegal migrants and head off the political threat from Reform UK.

On Wednesday, Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, said that the cases raised by The Telegraph showed “radical changes” to human rights laws are needed.

Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said that allowing proxy marriages to count seemed to “contradict any notion of common sense”.

He said: “This whole scenario seems extremely tenuous.

“The courts are – wrongly – adopting ever wider definitions that allow people without deep connections here and who have not made a meaningful contribution to the UK to stay here permanently.

“A new common sense approach is needed and we are currently developing that. The plan we announced last week to change the rules to make it a lot tougher to get indefinite leave to remain was just the first step in that process.”

Ms Boateng visited the UK on holiday in August 2018, when she met Mr Sualihu, before returning to Ghana on Sept 7 2018. She divorced her husband at the time on Christmas Eve 2018.

Then, on New Year’s Eve, she organised a “proxy” wedding in Kumasi, where she claimed the two families came together and exchanged gifts, even though neither she nor her new husband attended. This was followed by a civil marriage on Jan 21 2019 after Mr Sualihu flew out from the UK.

Ms Boateng’s eligibility for UK residency hinged on whether she was married for three years before she instituted divorce proceedings on Jan 6 2022. If the civil ceremony was taken as the starting point, she would not have been eligible.

She therefore had to prove to the court that there had been a proxy wedding on Dec 31 2018, to ensure the length of the marriage met the three-year timescale.

Her actual marriage certificate from the civil wedding was dated Jan 21 2019, putting it outside the timescale.

The Home Office challenged the veracity and quality of the documentary evidence of the proxy wedding, which included photographs with “slightly blurry superimposed” dates on them and a “haphazard” set of papers from her former husband.

However, Joseph Neville, the judge, determined that Ms Boateng had discharged the “burden of proof” in her favour.

“I find it to be more likely than not that a customary marriage did take place on Dec 31 2018 as claimed by [Ms Boateng] and that it was a valid marriage under Ghanaian law,” he said.

“I therefore find that the appellant’s marriage lasted at least three years and that the corresponding requirement of the residence scheme immigration rules is satisfied.”

A Home Office spokesman said: “While we do not routinely comment on individual cases, as the tribunal decision clearly indicates, we contested this case twice and will always seek to uphold our immigration rules.”

Charles Hymas Home Affairs Editor. Sam Ashworth-Hayes. Tim Sigsworth

Source: Telegraph

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