NCADC Campaigning Toolkit
This is the interview where you will be asked in detail about your reasons for claiming asylum. The interview may last several hours and you will be asked lots of questions. You may be asked questions several times in different ways.
This interview is very important. Because asylum claims are so hard to prove with documentary evidence, either because that evidence doesn’t exist or it was impossible to bring with you when you were fleeing your country, your testimony is often the only evidence you can provide.
You are going to be asked questions about things that may be very difficult to talk about. Try and think about ways you can try and remain calm and protect yourself when talking about emotional issues (see Emotional Support).
You may find it helpful to go through the important parts of your story in your head before the interview. If you want to talk to someone else, tell your story to someone you trust and see if there are bits that don’t make sense to them, and think about why they don’t make sense (are there bits you’ve forgotten to say? Things that don’t seem that important to you but are crucial to explaining the story to someone who wasn’t there?). Some people find it useful to write down the important points of the story, or draw symbols and pictures, to get it straightened out in their head before they are asked questions in the interview (often in a confrontational way).
You will not be able to take a written record in with you to the interview – some asylum claim refusal letters from UKBA have criticised people for having written notes at their screening interview, and for looking at a written statement during their asylum/substantive interview. It is very important that, while you have thought about what you want to say and have prepared yourself, you don’t repeat a script from memory or sound rehearsed, as this may sound like you are not telling the truth.
Being late or being lost will distract you from focusing on what you are going to say. If you cannot attend the interview, it is essential you provide very good reasons for this, preferably through a legal advisor (if you are ill, get a note from the doctor; if there are transport problems, get evidence of this from the transport company). Without good reasons and evidence of these good reasons, UKBA may refuse to re-arrange your interview and will assess your application on paper (which almost always leads to a refusal).
You may be asked to fit your story into a timeline of what happened when, in a way you are not used to (e.g. this event happened in 2009, then this event happened in May 2010, after that something happened in June 2010). Alternatively, during the interview, the interviewer may jump around from event to event which can be very confusing. Take your time answering questions and think about what you want to say before speaking. You might find it easier to draw a timeline of events – ask the interviewer if this possible.
If you cannot remember a date, say you cannot remember. You may not be able to remember an event by a day or month but by the weather, the season or a family occurrence. You can say these instead if you are sure of them. If there are ways of marking time that make more sense to you than an official calendar, such as an important church service or jobs you do as a farmer at a similar time every year, use these.
If you guess a date, and then say a different date at a different point in the interview or a later stage of your application, this will be used to doubt your story. Be clear about which calendar you are using (always do this, whether speaking to your legal advisor, an interpreter or the UKBA or a judge). It is better not to switch between calendars as this can lead to mistakes, so if, for example, you are used to using the Persian calendar or the Ethiopian calendar, use that throughout your testimony and it will be converted to the Gregorian (UK) calendar by UKBA or your legal advisor. You can ask your legal advisor to check that the dates have been converted properly by UKBA, an interpreter or by themselves.
It can be very upsetting when you are telling someone very difficult experiences from your past for them to suggest or say outright that they don’t believe you. Be ready for this as it is very likely to happen, and have faith in yourself. Try to have people to talk to that you trust, and who do believe you and will support you. Try to remain calm in the interview – if you get angry, the interviewer may stop the interview and this could harm your case.
While this is often hard to get because of the circumstances in which you had to leave your country, UKBA tend to disbelieve what you say and so it is very helpful if there is genuine documentary evidence to support your story.
If you are going to submit any documentary evidence (such as a political party membership card, or an arrest warrant), make sure you have shown this to your legal advisor beforehand and they have agreed it should be submitted. You can either give this evidence to UKBA at the interview, or you have five days after the interview within which to submit any documentary evidence or any statements.
If you are going to submit documents, make sure you know where they came from - who sent them to you? How did they get them? If posted to you, keep the envelope they came in and any other proof of postage. Wherever possible, you need to submit original documents, not photocopies or scans. If they are in a language other than English, you (or your lawyer, if you have one) will need to get a formal translation.
Never submit documents if you are not sure they are genuine - this could seriously damage your case. If possible, get an expert on your country/reason for claiming asylum to comment on whether they are genuine.
In addition to documentary evidence specific to your case, or if you are not able to get this evidence, general information about the situation in your country from reliable sources may be useful. This is sometimes called objective evidence. This may show that what you have experienced fits a pattern of human rights abuses or persecution in your country of origin. This is particularly important if you were persecuted by a state official such as a police officer or army officer: you need to be able to demonstrate that the state cannot protect you because state officials are commonly involved in these abuses, and that it was not just a one-off attack which would be unlikely to happen again.
For more on where to find objective evidence, see the Fresh Claims section of the Toolkit.
In nearly all substantive interviews (if you are an adult), you will not be able to have a legal advisor with you. It is your legal right to have the interview tape-recorded, if you or your legal representative have requested it 24 hours or more in advance of the interview. If you have requested it, you should make sure the interview is recorded. The interviewer may not mention it, or may try and convince you not to have it done, or say the machine is broken, but it is very important to have your interview recorded.
If you do have a legal advisor, they should be able to write a letter to take with you asking for the interview to be tape recorded. Make sure that you are given a copy of the tapes, as well as a written copy of what is said during the interview. These should be given to you immediately after the interview. Your legal advisor will need a copy of these. These records are important, as it may become clear later on that you have been refused because of something you didn’t say, that was written down wrong, or that has been misinterpreted. If your case goes to appeal, your legal advisor can listen to the tapes and compare this to what has been written down (with the help of an interpreter if necessary).
UKBA will provide an interpreter for the interview. As with the interpreter issues discussed in the ‘Screening Interview’ section, if there is a problem with the interpretation, say so immediately. Big problems with interpretation will be impossible to ignore – for example, you do not understand the interpreter at all, or they do not understand you. But it is important to watch out for small problems too. Little things misinterpreted can have a big impact on your case. This might be something like the wrong date being used. It may be that there isn’t a direct equivalent in your language for a word in English and therefore the wrong word is used (for example, in some languages there is no separate word for ‘wrist’ and ‘elbow’ and ‘shoulder’, the word ‘arm’ is used for all these. This can cause problems, especially when talking about injuries, and torture). The wrong grammar may cause a problem – is ‘he’ and ‘she’ being used correctly? Are you talking about one person (the singular) but it is being interpreted into English as two people (plural). You may speak enough English to notice these errors, in which case you should correct them during the interview. Or it may not be until a legal advisor looks at the transcript and in light of what you have told them that the errors become clear.
If you have a legal advisor, they may ask you to tell them your story before the interview with UKBA and submit a statement before the interview. If you are going to be explaining very upsetting events, this might be a useful thing to do, so that you do not have to be asked so many detailed questions about events (for example, with incidents of sexual violence). A statement may be written and submitted after the interview, particularly if there are things you weren’t given chance to explain or you think there were problems with the interview.
The ROW 2012 handbook "Seeking Refuge?" (pages 34-35) has this advice on confusing questions in your asylum interview:
Example 1: The interviewer may ask you a question which is difficult to answer properly:
Q: ‘when the police came to your house at night, was that when they took your daughter away...?’
This is actually four or five questions in one. You may want to say that it wasn’t the police who came, it was the army. And they didn’t come to the house, but to your uncle’s farm. But it was at night, and they did take your daughter. Many asylum-seekers answer a question like that by just saying ‘No’. Then the UKBA says ‘when we asked you if your daughter was taken away, you said ”no”.....’ and this counts as a discrepancy. The UKBA may well then say that you have poor credibility, which means that they don’t believe your story.
If a complicated question like this is asked of you, give yourself the chance to answer each part of the question properly:
A: ‘It didn’t happen like that. Let me tell you in my own words...’ Or A: ‘I don’t understand the question. Please ask it in a more simple way’
Example 2: a question may be asked where the answer would be long and difficult to get all the details right:
Q: ‘when you were in prison last year were you tortured or ill-treated at all?’
Some asylum-seekers say something like: ‘One night the guards came and tortured me....’ Then the UKBA say later on ‘You said the guards came on only one night...’ and they call this a discrepancy and say you have poor credibility.
If they ask a question like this, give yourself a chance to answer fully:
A: ‘The guards came and tortured me on many occasions. It would take a long time to tell you the details of every single time. Some of it I can’t remember clearly. Can I tell you about one or two examples of what they did?’
Always answer the question
If the UKBA ask a simple question, make sure you answer it. Try to listen to each question and concentrate on what you are being asked.
Q: ‘When were you detained?’
Many asylum seekers will say ‘They came during the night – a lot of police with guns rushed into the house and grabbed me, and took me to the local prison....’ You may have said all this already in your written statement. The UKBA don’t need you to repeat that detail, but they may need you to clarify when this happened. Make sure you answer the question ‘when?’.
A: ‘I was detained twice. Once was two years ago, after my husband was put in prison. That time I was detained for 2 weeks. The second time was in March – the second week in March 2011...’
Things the UKBA may find it difficult to believe – if this kind of thing happened to you, be careful to give full details.
You may have escaped from a prison in your country, or travelled a very long distance by walking. You may have managed to escape even when you were very ill, or you were experiencing the effects of torture or ill-treatment. You may have hidden money or identity papers in a small corner of your house which the police did not search. These are things which do not happen very often in the UK, and people working at the UKBA may find it difficult to believe these things. So it is helpful if you give details, for example:
You may be asked to sign a form at the end of the interview to say that you agree that the interview transcript (written record of what was said) is an accurate record. As you haven’t read the record, you are allowed to refuse to sign it. You could say something like ‘I do not know what you’ve written’ or ‘my representative has advised me not to’ (if this is what they said). make sure you are given a written copy of the screening interview and a copy of the substantive interview transcript. You will be asked to sign to say you received this. It can be confusing knowing which part to sign, and which to refuse (if you want to)!
The picture above is a copy of the bottom of the last page of the interview record. This is also called a Statement of Evidence form. It is the form on which the interviewer handwrites the questions and your answers.
The first signature box is to say you have received a copy of the interview record (the form) and an audio recording (the tape of the interview). If you have received these, you can sign this box.
The second signature box is saying you approve the contents of the form and the tape. Without having read the form, which will be many pages long, and without having listened to the tape, you cannot know if you approve of the contents as answers may have been wrongly recorded. You should ask your legal representative for advice before the interview, and they may recommend that you refuse to sign the second box. It is your right to refuse the sign the box: if you later challenge what is written on the form, but have signed the box to say you approve of the contents, UKBA may question this.
Get the substantive interview tape recorded and make sure you are given a copy of the tapes
If you need a break during the interview, ask for one – this is your right, do not be afraid to ask
If you are not feeling well, are tired, or upset because of having to think about what has happened to you, tell the interviewer this
If there were things you forgot to say, said wrong, felt you were not given time to explain or if there were any other problems during the interview, make sure this is recorded when you are asked ‘Is there anything else you want to add?’
If there is a problem with interpretation, say so as soon as possible
You have the right to request a male or female interviewer, and a male or female interpreter.
If you are more comfortable speaking in front of an interpreter not from your country or community, you can request this but this cannot be guaranteed.
If you do want a particular gender of interviewer and interpreter, you should request this a few days before your interview
