An American-born, British citizen says that what should have been a routine passport interview with UK officials turned into a half hour interrogation about his sexuality and fatherhood.
The Home Office has suspended a UK passport official, pending disciplinary investigations, after the employee reportedly subjected a gay man to an intrusive line of questioning in front of the man’s four-year-old son.
The interrogation included information on the man’s sexual history and details about the adoption of his children.
American-born Randall Cole, aged 44, is married to a British man Stuart Wales, 42.
They moved to the UK from the US last year and Cole, a charity worker, became a British citizen in May. When he was invited to an interview with immigration officials, he believed that it would be a straightforward formality in order to process his application for a British passport.
He duly turned up to the interview centre in Chelmsford, Essex, with his four-year-old son, but has told The Guardian that he was left feeling ‘violated and dirty’ by the interviewer’s line of questioning, which he felt was ‘clearly homophobic’.
The interview took place in an open-plan office while Cole’s young son sat on his lap.
‘I told her I am here with my son Samuel and that he has an older brother [aged eight] but that my husband is looking after him,’ said Cole, ‘and when I used the term husband that's when you could see something immediately changed in her. She began to fixate on questions about my family.’
He says that the interviewer began to quiz him on his biological connection to his child, and after she had ascertained that he and his husband were fathers through adoption, said, ‘Oh, so that's why you're able to have children’.
She went on to ask what the children’s birth mother ‘think about all of us?' and 'Aren't the children confused by it all?'
He said that she then asked whether he wondered what people ‘make of you when they see you walking down the street with your kids?’
She went on to grill him about the children’s mother: ‘Do they call her mum? Why didn't she want to keep her children?’
Cole says that although Samuel is aware of his adoption, he felt forced to again explain things to him while the interviewer grilled him: ‘At this point I felt I was failing my son, failing to keep him safe.’
Cole says that he objected to the line of questioning when the interviewer asked him – again in front of his son – if he had previously had sex with women. Noting his objection, the interviewer replied: ‘We can ask anything we want, regardless of whether or not it makes you feel uncomfortable.’
When Cole mentioned that he worked part-time, he says the interviewer interrupted to say, 'Oh, so you're like the housewife.'
Cole has since filed an official complaint. A Home Office spokesman said: ‘Intrusive questions about someone's sexuality as part of an interview would be inappropriate and is not a reflection of our policy.
‘The member of staff in question has been suspended and a disciplinary investigation is now under way.’
Commenting on the case, veteran human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell told MailOnline: ‘It's truly shocking in this day and age that a Home Office official can behave in this intrusive and bigoted way.
'I'm delighted that the official has been suspended. No-one applying for a passport should be subjected to such humiliation for any reason.’
No comments:
Post a Comment