26 February 2013

Dear Mr Whiteman, I write to comment on your dismissive reply to my MP, Mr David Morris, concerning my wife's settlement visa application and refusal. He wrote to Theresa May, however I presume one of her underlings referred it to one of your underlings. Please note that I live on [Primrose] Drive, not Lane. Details (should) matter to you (e.g. I am not the local MP), details matter to me. Thus, note also that my wife Phataraporn's nickname is Vilai, not Vilia. It means 'lovely' (not luvly) ... and she is a lovely woman. That is why I married her, over a year ago, around the time that we became aware of and started to negotiate your bewildering assault course. Because that is what it is, a series of ever moving, rising and changing obstacles designed to hinder decent married couples wishing to live together, as married couples normally do, presumably in the hope that we will tell others not to bother, so you can, in that way, do the Home Secretary's nasty bidding and cut net immigration and keep Britain British! Nice. I find your explanation about dealing with cases in strict order to be in very poor taste. The truth of the matter is, I think, that your staff in Bangkok will not take ten minutes to examine some very straightforward crystal-clear documentation which establishes, beyond all reasonable doubt, that my income exceeded 18,600 in 2011-12 (and does so already in 2012-13 just ask the accountant you made me use) until the 2 May deadline set by First-tier Tribunal (FTT), i.e. when they really, really, really have to. They will of course spend much longer composing emails saying we must wait ... and keep waiting and waiting and waiting. The days when staff might have shown a little decency and common courtesy, some vestige of humanity, to British citizens and their spouses, to married couples, to newly-weds, are I think long gone. Now the aim seems to be to punish us simply for being married, to bleed us dry, to delay/avoid issuing settlement visas, or any other visas for that matter, whenever possible. Because 'rules is rules'. Perhaps some individuals get some perverse pleasure from that, perhaps they revel in Schadenfreude, I can think of no other reasonable

explanation, unless of course there is some sort of unwritten political directive? Very nice. At this point I should explain our situation. We married on 7 February 2012, i.e. over a year ago (ask George to do the maths), when I was 58 and my wife 43. When I needed an affidavit of freedom to marry your staff were quite happy to issue that, and get it wrong, in a matter of minutes, for about 60, with a smile, while I waited. Clearly that was very easy money, for doing a very simple task incorrectly, on which no immigration consequences hinged no question of queues, delays, waiting lists or processing times that day just take the mug's money and put it in petty cash, thank you punter! No wonder they smiled. Around the time we married I/we realised that my wife would need to take and pass an appropriate English test before applying for a visa; like so many others, we were naive virgins with respect to your unfathomable rules and regulations, buried as they are, hidden deep in the bowels of your obscure annexes. As my MP said (not me), no one understands them doubtless no one is supposed to understand them. Once back in the UK, in late February, I took advice from a proofreading customer, a helpful and obliging Taiwanese woman (strange character traits these Taiwanese) who works for Pearson Education in London; and thus my wife took Cambridge KET in March and passed first time that's before she has the opportunity to be immersed in an anglophone environment, whereupon her level will rise rapidly, much faster than it ever can in Thailand, where most people listen, speak, read and write, acquire and learn, in Thai, not English. My MA is in TEFL so I do have some understanding of this domain e.g. Stephen Krashen and his input hypothesis. I have seen Vilai's written English progress well in recent years: impressive spelling and vocabulary, but needs to work on her short infinitives, e.g. 'I must to go now.' Whilst I was out there early last year, in February, my wife went for a TB test, of her own volition, to a reputable hospital in Bangkok (Ramkhamhaeng, I was with her) as she knew a test was required. It was clear. She had another test in April, a routine test organised by her then long-term employer (Redalpi) at the same place, that too was clear. But curiously, when she came to apply for a visa in late May (I have a screenshot saying her application was 'submitted successfully': GWFxxxxxxxx), it became apparent that she had gone to the 'wrong' hospital. So

she went to the IOM, instead, in June. And of course they decided there might be something awry and so she had to wait and go back in August, whereupon everything was fine, despite no treatment or medication, and the savage vicious draconian new rules were in force odd that, especially as exactly the same thing happened to a friend of Vilai's (in the TB test this month Vilai got her new certificate without any wait, but yet more expense of course). That means you can try to torture us for five years rather than two, and charge extra juicy rising fees too. Very, very, very nice work if you can get it, innit? Vilai (not Vilia) applied in August and was rejected in October. No problem with the English test, TB test, accommodation or genuineness of our marriage (just imagine, not a 'sham' marriage but a real one, sorry Sun and Daily Mail hacks, no Valentine's Day material there); no, the supposed 'problem' was the lack of documentation to prove my income. Before I discuss that I will tell you that I was a professional photographer for around 25 years (I still have a large heavy bag of Hasselblads, I can submit them as evidence but mind your toes) and a partner (with my ex-wife until she went off with the fat teetotal chain-smoking Greek Cypriot motorbiking social worker who knocked her around a bit, allegedly, and eventually succumbed to lung cancer) in a gte-letting agency for a decade (to help that I did a French degree to add to my collection). As a photographer I worked very long hours, not just photographing but processing, printing, laminating and mounting burning a lot of midnight oil, to make the business pay, to support my family, never claiming 'benefits'. After my first marriage folded my wife of 24 years had an affair and left, three weeks after the empty nest, not long after I closed my studio, as I was starting the final year of my French degree ... pushing me into severe clinical depression, and into taking a sabbatical I had a rough decade, c'est la vie quoi, hein ? But still I did what needed to be done to pay my way and pay off my mortgage ... without ever claiming a penny in 'benefits' (I don't do 'benefits', you can keep your 'benefits', we're not interested in your poxy 'benefits', okay? T'as compris ?). I did six months in a BT call centre to help get through the depression, I worked as a language assistant in France twice (Rennes, Valenciennes), I rented out my old studio, i.e. flat and shop (I still do, the fiveyear shop renewal has just been signed), I rented out my home (and had it somewhat trashed), I got into academic proofreading (masters' dissertations,

PhDs, book manuscripts). I never get rich but I always manage perfectly well, it's a self-employed mindset, a family trait, we pay our way. No benefits sought or wanted. So these days, after starting with nothing material, I own outright my house, shop and flat in a nice village where the doctors live. My ex-wife came out of it very nicely too. My rental income nearly satisfies the income threshold, similarly my proofreading income just sitting on the settee at home with Sasha my Dalmatian (she's a dog, not a cat) my two sons being long gone. And we will need nothing like the threshold income to live on (in Lancashire, not London) as I pay zero rent or mortgage I have no housing costs, just the usual bills. Clearly I/we don't qualify for any benefits ... and to remind you: we don't want any benefits, okay? According to your staff in Bangkok, when an application is received with insufficient documentation they claim normally to contact the applicant and give them a timescale to supply what is missing. Well they didn't do that in my wife's case, or her friend's (as in TB testing) case, they just refused them. It is of course at that point, and only at that point, that your 'helpful' staff (as if) specify exactly what is required, i.e. exactly what is missing a legal requirement no doubt. I submitted an FOI request in relation to this and I think the recent reply (attached, 25960) is quite illuminating. They did it quite quickly too, I was impressed with their speed and their courtesy so I told them they did a good job. I do peculiar things like that when people are nice to me and treat me/us with respect. It seems that if you do 'allow' applicants the opportunity to submit more documents the most you 'allow' them is ten days. In my case I had to organise a lot of documents (you don't seem to like someone who doesn't draw a regular salary, outside your experience perhaps, though I won't suddenly be made redundant, you know?), and they were in Leicester at 8.06am just 23 days after my wife made the long journey from Borabue ... to be refused. You do frequently make applicants make very long journeys to collect refusals in person, don't you? Do you not think that that is rather sadistic hit them with a very depressing refusal when they are already tired and thus vulnerable? Do some of the VFS staff enjoy that scenario too, when the emotions erupt and the tears flow? Thais

have emotions too, 'they' are people, just like 'us'. And when you advise 'refusees' they can appeal, the most you 'allow' is 28 days. But then of course FTT can take weeks to do not a lot (in our case five weeks), and Bangkok can have much longer, 16-19 weeks (much more than it takes to process a whole visa application), to do even less. How on earth do you justify that glaring discrepancy? For the appeal I was expected to produce a copy of the deeds to my old premises (imagine submitting original deeds to UKBA, too scary!), though two legal opinions were that an official Land Registry entry was quite sufficient. It took weeks to have that confirmed by email by Bangkok, and even then it was only after the intervention of the wonderful Baroness Smith, and after I had spent a long day driving 100+ miles to 'borrow' my deeds (having tracked them down) and do 200+ scans, just in case, as advocated by Lord Avebury. On that occasion Bangkok obstructed me. On other occasions they have: insulted me (when they initially refused my then fiance a visit visa they sneered at what they thought was a derisory amount in my current bank account my substantial savings are kept in a deposit account and withheld an original bank statement, which I had to ask for later); lied to me (in August I think the 'Appendix 2' that my wife got useless 'help' with from one of the hangers-on near VFS, Regent House, under duress from VFS staff, at a cost of 70, was wrong, so I was advised by your staff that I could redo it I did do that and your staff denied having received it in the refusal, a blatant lie. I sent that information again, to prove a point, but no reply of course); and ignored me (the repeated requests I made in early January for a timescale to check through the appeal documents). And the best bit is that if I want to complain I must do that by sending an email to the same email address that is often the cause of the complaint no doubt to be ignored again? Oh do please beam me up Scotty! In addition to a solicitor-certified official Land Registry entry, I had to submit copies of: leases for my two tenants; a letter confirming registration for selfemployment; a NI statement; my last tax return (prepared by an ex-Inland Revenue employee whose letter confirming my income was considered insufficient for a visa application); an income tax statement; an additional set of chartered accounts (they cost 384 and simply repeated, to within 20, what was already done, a very abusive requirement if ever there was); proof of

ongoing income; and as a final insult, a full year's bank statements. You really don't take anyone or anything on trust do you, not even a respectable chartered accountant's accounts? Mon Dieu, j'y crois pas ! No wonder John Vine talks of a 'culture of disbelief'. As stated above, I did all that in just three weeks some straightforward, some difficult. Why? Because I'm married. I have a wife. I have responsibilities (I support my wife and help support her mum). Oh yeah, and I love my wife. I nearly forgot that bit amidst all this dingy dismal dross, this cesspit of human misery that we wade through. Yes, we want to start our married life together, scandalous isn't it? Are you married Mr Whiteman? If so you should try spending a year apart. Your 'system' is booby-trapped to make us starting our married life as difficult as possible so we'll tell others not to bother? Shameful and repugnant isn't it? Mr Whiteman, in December, Bangkok processed seven settlement visa applications, not exactly 'swamped' (I'm always amused by the threat from water metaphor), there are no figures for January yet. You know as well as I that your staff could check through those appeal documents in minutes, but they won't will they, not until it's near the court deadline, when they 'must to do that'. Or if they have already checked through them then they will sit on their response until the deadline no doubt. Perhaps they want to 'teach me/us a lesson', for daring to challenge them, pestering them, being critical, not cringing in a corner, refusing to kowtow to the killjoy UKBA, being interviewed for Radio 4 'Today' and by Radio London for all the good that (and this missive?) did/will do. And I feel sure they will try very, very, very hard to find some flaw in my wife's appeal so they can delay issuing a visa for many more months i.e. after a court hearing and the two months they are then allowed to issue a visa. After I turn 60 and my wife turns 45. Marital bliss? No, enforced separation. You give some information on the website about processing times for visa applications, but there are no statistics for what should be a very simple, straightforward and quick perusal of documents referred back by Leicester, as used to be the case I believe. Why is that? You see we have already waited many, many times Mr Whiteman: for the English test, for the TB tests, for the refusal, for FTT to open an envelope and charge me another 140 (that's over 1,000 in fees for doing not a lot, plus all the other costs incurred, approaching two grand in total I dare say), and now for Bangkok, eventually, to reply to the

court. This all seems designed to rip us off and wear us down. Truly, it's a #settlementvisanightmare, a very sad reflection on the UK in 2012-13. But what it does is make us all the more determined, stoical even, to see this nasty pernicious process, this blatant abuse of power, through to the bitter end. However hard you may try Mr Whiteman, your cold, cruel, calculated and cynical system will not prevent us having our married life together, via the Surinder Singh route if necessary, d'accord ? Note that I will never, ever, forget or forgive the truly appalling way we have been treated by your agency, 'a deeply shameful event in British history' (nice phrase David). I don't take kindly to being treated like something someone has stepped in. What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. Part of your job is to support genuine marriages, not to seek to destroy them. I suggest you remember that Mr Whiteman. And as for offering world-class service, Frank Carson never told one as good as that. I've now been well and truly shafted by my ex-wife and by my own government. Shame on you. Yours sincerely,

Gerard Hearne MA.