Suzanne
16-04-07, 04:07 PM
LOVE AT FIRST CLICK: Since their marriage in July 2006,
Bulgarian-British couple Sonia and John Slater have been
trying to convince British authorities that their marriage
was genuine rather than an arrangement of convenience.
http://www.sofiaecho.com/showimage.php?img=bg_uk_family.jpg
A Bulgarian-British couple is in the process of a legal battle to persuade British authorities that their marriage was an act of genuine love, and was not fictitious.
John Slater (41) and Sonia Slater (37) met in a pub in the British city of Hull in July 2005, while Sonia was on a trip to see friends. When she returned to Bulgaria, Sonia and John kept in touch through chat programmes and e-mail. In March 2006, Sonia was sent on a business trip and decided to meet up with John in London. She says that the two fell in love and a week after Sonia was back from the UK, John followed her and proposed that she come back with him to the UK as his wife. Sonia did not hesitate and the two were married in July 2006.
At the time, Bulgaria was not yet an EU member and Bulgarian citizens needed visas to enter the UK. A month after the wedding, however, the British embassy in Sofia refused Sonia a permanent spouse visa. The official statement from a UK embassy official was: “I am not satisfied that each of the parties to the marriage intends to live permanently with the other as his or her spouse and the marriage is subsisting”. The embassy letter says that when Sonia went for a business trip to London in March 2006, she “failed to disclose the presence of Mr. John Slater. It is reasonable to expect that you would have mentioned him in your VAF.” According to Sonia Slater, however, she did not have to mention John Slater, as she was going on a business trip. Moreover, at the time her relationship with John was still not of a romantic nature.
The embassy letter says that even though Sonia was given a visa for her business trip, she took advantage of it when she weeks later re-entered the UK with the same visa. What the statement does not note, however, is that the visa was a year-long C-Visit visa, which is a tourist visa. This does not bar its use to re-enter the UK for non-business-related reasons. The embassy official’s closing words in the letter were “I conclude that you have a strong wish to live in the UK and remained there for four months when your visa was intended for you to conduct business for a week. In the view of the above, I consider it probable that your sole motive is to re-enter permanently in the UK. I am not satisfied that you and your sponsor intend to live there permanently as spouses.”
http://www.sofiaecho.com/showimage.php?img=bg_uk_family2.jpg
Soon after the visa refusal letter was issued and given to John and Sonia, they received an e-mail from a British embassy official saying that the couple had not presented enough evidence to prove that their relationship was genuine. They then wrote back to say that all that the embassy asked for prior to the application was provided. To this the two received no further response, they say.
According to a British home office document, officers could make “further enquiries” into a case should they feel there is insufficient information. But in Sonia and John’s case, this did not happen. “I have 240 pages of ICQ and MSN chat conversations that can easily prove that we are genuine, why didn’t they simply ask for more?” Sonia told The Sofia Echo.
The couple immediately decided to appeal against the decision. Their lawyer is currently trying to get Sonia a certificate of registration at the home office under European law. If that fails, the family will be given a hearing by the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal in Bradford on May 4.
Currently in the UK Sonia does not have access to public healthcare and is not allowed to work. “If even the tribunal hearing fails we are determined to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights and receive all the rights that I am entitled to as my husband’s wife. This has been the most traumatic experience of both our lives and what happened to us is utterly absurd,” Sonia said.
www.sofiaecho.com
Bulgarian-British couple Sonia and John Slater have been
trying to convince British authorities that their marriage
was genuine rather than an arrangement of convenience.
http://www.sofiaecho.com/showimage.php?img=bg_uk_family.jpg
A Bulgarian-British couple is in the process of a legal battle to persuade British authorities that their marriage was an act of genuine love, and was not fictitious.
John Slater (41) and Sonia Slater (37) met in a pub in the British city of Hull in July 2005, while Sonia was on a trip to see friends. When she returned to Bulgaria, Sonia and John kept in touch through chat programmes and e-mail. In March 2006, Sonia was sent on a business trip and decided to meet up with John in London. She says that the two fell in love and a week after Sonia was back from the UK, John followed her and proposed that she come back with him to the UK as his wife. Sonia did not hesitate and the two were married in July 2006.
At the time, Bulgaria was not yet an EU member and Bulgarian citizens needed visas to enter the UK. A month after the wedding, however, the British embassy in Sofia refused Sonia a permanent spouse visa. The official statement from a UK embassy official was: “I am not satisfied that each of the parties to the marriage intends to live permanently with the other as his or her spouse and the marriage is subsisting”. The embassy letter says that when Sonia went for a business trip to London in March 2006, she “failed to disclose the presence of Mr. John Slater. It is reasonable to expect that you would have mentioned him in your VAF.” According to Sonia Slater, however, she did not have to mention John Slater, as she was going on a business trip. Moreover, at the time her relationship with John was still not of a romantic nature.
The embassy letter says that even though Sonia was given a visa for her business trip, she took advantage of it when she weeks later re-entered the UK with the same visa. What the statement does not note, however, is that the visa was a year-long C-Visit visa, which is a tourist visa. This does not bar its use to re-enter the UK for non-business-related reasons. The embassy official’s closing words in the letter were “I conclude that you have a strong wish to live in the UK and remained there for four months when your visa was intended for you to conduct business for a week. In the view of the above, I consider it probable that your sole motive is to re-enter permanently in the UK. I am not satisfied that you and your sponsor intend to live there permanently as spouses.”
http://www.sofiaecho.com/showimage.php?img=bg_uk_family2.jpg
Soon after the visa refusal letter was issued and given to John and Sonia, they received an e-mail from a British embassy official saying that the couple had not presented enough evidence to prove that their relationship was genuine. They then wrote back to say that all that the embassy asked for prior to the application was provided. To this the two received no further response, they say.
According to a British home office document, officers could make “further enquiries” into a case should they feel there is insufficient information. But in Sonia and John’s case, this did not happen. “I have 240 pages of ICQ and MSN chat conversations that can easily prove that we are genuine, why didn’t they simply ask for more?” Sonia told The Sofia Echo.
The couple immediately decided to appeal against the decision. Their lawyer is currently trying to get Sonia a certificate of registration at the home office under European law. If that fails, the family will be given a hearing by the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal in Bradford on May 4.
Currently in the UK Sonia does not have access to public healthcare and is not allowed to work. “If even the tribunal hearing fails we are determined to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights and receive all the rights that I am entitled to as my husband’s wife. This has been the most traumatic experience of both our lives and what happened to us is utterly absurd,” Sonia said.
www.sofiaecho.com