Zimbabwean woman loses British passport

A woman from Zimbabwe living in Belfast has been left stateless after losing a judicial review against a decision to confiscate her British passport.

Beatrice Alstrid Burnett took the case after her passport was confiscated by immigration officers at Belfast International Airport in August 2008. Checks revealed she had obtained the passport with a fake birth certificate.

She had given up her Zimbabwean citizenship the month before her passport was withdrawn. Burnett, who must leave the UK, was employed by Belfast City Council through a recruitment agency.

She claimed to be entitled to the passport because her father had been a British citizen. However, she later admitted that she had got the passport using a false document.

Burnett made an application for the passport to the British High Commission in Pretoria, South Africa, in March 2008.

In her application, she used the false birth certificate to back up her claim that she was the daughter of a retired dentist who had been born in Newcastle Upon Tyne.

Burnett, who had been living in Belfast since December 2007, was stopped by an immigration official at the airport after returning to Belfast, via Paris, after visiting her fiance in the United States.

She had given up her Zimbabwean citizenship the month before her British passport was confiscated and has subsequently been left without a state.

A barrister acting on Burnett’s behalf had argued that she was entitled to the passport because she had not known her birth certificate was false and had obtained it in good faith.

She said her client only found out from her family that the British-born dentist was not her father at a later date.

However, last month, the Court of Appeal in Belfast dismissed this on the basis that she was never entitled to the document in the first place.

Passing judgement, Lord Justice Girvan suggested the woman should apply to the Zimbabwean authorities for assistance in getting her citizenship back. BBC