Marooned and penniless: administrative mistake by UKBA has personal consequences

The administrative giants, like the UK Border Agency and HM Courts and Tribunals Service, are familiar names in our casework. The themes we see tend to be ordinary ones of delay, failure to reply to their customers, or unclear information about what they expect from customers. But, as one Australian backpacker found out, sometimes ordinary mistakes can have big personal consequences.

Mr P, an Australian backpacker, wanting to be in England just long enough to catch a flight home to Australia, ended up stranded in Paris for six weeks. He was sick, almost penniless, unable to speak the language and only got home thanks to help from the French government. The UK Border Agency had detained him, then sent him back to France instead of letting him pick up his flight connection at Heathrow.

Our investigation found that the Agency’s mistake was failing to realise that Mr P had a ticket for a flight to Australia within a day. When he complained, the Agency had persisted in overlooking their mistake. We obtained compensation of £2,250 for Mr P, and £430 with interest for the cost of his wasted air ticket.

In December we published our parliamentary complaint handling report, which gives more details of complaints we have looked into about government departments and other government organisations. You can read more about it in this edition of Resolve, and the report is available in full from our website.