Passport of Belfast Emigrant Seized

Reports have come in about a woman from Zimbabwe, whom has been living in Belfast, that has been left stateless after losing a judicial review against a decision to confiscate her British passport. The woman, Beatrice Alstrid Burnett, took the case after her passport was confiscated by emigration officers at Belfast International Airport in August of 2008.

Checks went on to reveal that the woman had obtained the passport with a fake birth certificate. She had given up her Zimbabwean citizenship the month before her passport was withdrawn. Now Burnett must leave the UK. She had been employed by Belfast City Council through a recruitment agency.

The lady 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 back in March of 2008.

In the application that she sent in, she had used a 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 finally stopped by emigration officials at the airport after she was returning to Belfast via Paris after visiting her fiancée in the United States.

The problem now is that Burnett does not have a state to belong to. Since she gave up her Zimbabwean citizenship a month before her British passport was confiscated, she has fallen into the cracks. Lord Justice Girvan suggested that the woman apply to the Zimbabwean authorities for assistance in getting her citizenship back.