Prurient questions about sexual matters

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Reading through the Home Office’s response to a recent Home Affairs Select Committee, this jumped out at me:

The Home Office does not permit caseworkers to ask prurient questions about sexual matters or require applicants to produce sexually explicit material in support of their claim.

This is somewhat questionable given the contents of some interviews, as recently picked up by and covered in The Guardian.

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Colin Yeo

Immigration and asylum barrister, blogger, writer and consultant at Garden Court Chambers in London and founder of the Free Movement immigration law website.

Comments

One Response

Philip says:

11 February 2014 at 9:57 pm

Hmm. Is there any Home Office guidance on what exactly is a “prurient question on sexual matters”? Are caseworkers trained on how to stop themselves asking such questions? What should one do if a caseworker does ask such a question? I suppose if you are at the interview you can stop your client from answering, but thereafter can you ask for those parts of the interview to be deleted from the record, or ruled inadmissible?