Kevin is a civil engineer in his early thirties. He went out to Ghana to get married, thinking that he would be able to bring his wife back on the return trip. The local Registrar gave him a rigorous interview to establish that the marriage was genuine, and afterwards the couple thought that the Entry Clearance application would be a formality.
However, at the Embassy they were interviewed hurriedly in a noisy office. The templated questions gave them no chance to explain how their relationship had developed, and why they were ready to marry even though they had first met only a few days earlier.
The Refusal forced Kevin to return to the UK without his wife. He had to come back to his job.
The relationship had started two years earlier when a trusted friend had introduced the couple with some photographs. It developed over email and telephone contact. It had changed Kevin’s life in ways that his flatmate and close friends could observe.
The subsequent Appeal enabled these friends to come forward. Also, Kevin’s mother was able to speak of the contact she had established with her daughter-in-law.
The Home Office maintained their resistance but the Immigration Judge could now see that the relationship was genuine, just as the Ghanaian Marriage Registrar had done several months earlier. The Immigration Judge directed the Entry Clearance Officer to allow Kevin’s wife to come, and the celebrations of their wedding planned for this country, finally took place.
