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Lone parents

Use our Single Parent forum to speak to other parents raising a child alone.

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Original poster

Today I was asked by UK immigration to prove I was my sons mother!!

44 replies

elastamum · 15/02/2009 18:59

Have just returned from a wonderful skiing trip, my first as a LP - thanks to Mark Warner. On the way through immigration the customs officer asked if I could prove that my children were mine as I have a different surname from them. Even though the kids look like me and were saying 'come on mum!'very loudly I ended up having to produce their birth certificates - which I have a copy of just in case I need them overseas. I asked him why and he just muttered child protection issues require them to check. I mean WTF, we came in on a Mark Warner charter flight all wearing ski gear! I did ask him what he had intended to do if I didnt have their birth certificates and he just said that they had a number of questions they would ask to establish if I was the parent and then he gave me a leaflet! I was fuming and all the people behind us were gobsmacked, anyone else had this experience??

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NorbertDentressangle · 15/02/2009 20:58

This thread has reminded me of when we returned from Portugal last summer.

At passport control as we re-entered the UK the DC were asked all sorts of questions in a friendly manner but obviously checking out that all was OK and legitimate -eg. "Is that your brother? Whats his name? Have you had a holiday with Mummy and Daddy?"

BTW DP and I are not married and the children have his surname.

elmoandella · 15/02/2009 21:02

aimsmum - i have flew alot with dc. over to their gp in italy several times of yr. eurodisney and many more without their dad.

learned the hard way to remember certificates. do get them just incase.

p.s mines have different suname and photo's are when they were both under 1 month old. i really could have any old passport with me

NorbertDentressangle · 15/02/2009 21:04

Actually DS's passport photo was when he was about 6m old and he was 4.2 when we went to Portugal

callmeovercautious · 15/02/2009 21:06

I always travel with DDs full birth cert as I have heard of this before. DH and I are now married but we were not when she first arrived. I have not changed my passport yet.

Like you though my DD is a mini me but with blue eyes - who would even consider questionning it - except Immigration I suppose

Original poster

elastamum · 15/02/2009 22:23

I think I would have been less surprised if I was leaving the country, than coming back on a charter flight dressed in ski gear with 2 obviously english and related kids. I think the official was just meeting his target. He got quite embarassed when I pointed out that surely for child protection purposes they should be more bothered about us leaving the country than returning home

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Original poster

elastamum · 15/02/2009 22:25

Last year I bought my niece home from france and dropped her off with her mum as she lives near us. Nobody seemed to care at the time that we had a child who didnt share the same name as any of us!

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Nighbynight · 15/02/2009 22:57

this is a good idea, but why has it apparently been brought in silently, and in such an inefficient way?

yes, there may be an announcement on some govt website blah blah, like we all read them regularly - why can't they simply change all new child passports to include details of the parents, and any other adult that the parent wants put on the passport?

Nighbynight · 15/02/2009 22:58

If I hadnt read this thread, I would never have thought of taking the childrens birth certificates around with us!

TrulyMadBadandDeeply · 15/02/2009 23:05

I don't think it is a requirement to take marriage and/or birth certificates - more that, as people have discovered, immigration officers are more likely to ask about the relationship between the adult and the child and having the documents is one way to answer those questions. It seems to be different, though, with documents about parental responsibility/consent to travel.

Nighbynight · 15/02/2009 23:11

Its clearly a requirement that they check a certain number of people though. And how is this going to develop in the future?

edam · 15/02/2009 23:20

I thought that divorced/separated parents didn't need permission from each other for the child to travel for periods of under a month?

At any rate, thanks for bringing this up, if dh ever has to travel abroad with ds I'll get him to take a copy of the birth certificate - ds is a mini-dh but has my surname so I can imagine immigration officers having fun with that one.

Nighbynight · 15/02/2009 23:22

I guess it depends on the parental responsibility. I have 100%.

TrulyMadBadandDeeply · 15/02/2009 23:32

I was just going by what it says on the Passport Agency website, ie that there are some circs in which consent is needed, so then the parent travelling would need to carry the relevant documents.

frogs · 15/02/2009 23:34

NN, this has happened to me a few times, mainly when leaving Germany with as it happens. I couldn't prove the child/children were mine, so they just asked some questions to check. The fact that dd1 looks like a junior cloned version of me didn't apparently weigh into the equation.

In any case, there's no law against taking unrelated children in or out of countries -- we've taken a friend's child to France with us, and my dc have gone abroad variously with my mum, my cousin and my sister. I guess as long as they could reassure themselves that there was no evidence of abduction or other dubious business, they couldn't really object. But I suspect in some more enthusiastic countries they could keep you for a good while until they'd exhausted their checks.

There really should be Home Office and EU protocols for this. Having parents' names in a child's passport would be a very obvious starting point.

fossa · 15/02/2009 23:36

Hmm, can't get a letter of permission from ds' dad, as haven't seen him for 5 years and don't know (or care) where he is.... He doesn't have PR anyway, but immigration wouldn't know that - DS is 14 though, so I guess would be likely to make a fuss if I were abducting him?

One more hassle with foreign travel.

Linnet · 15/02/2009 23:45

Once when travelling home from Canada I got to the desk with dd1 and dh was trailing slightly behind and when I presented the woman with our passports she asked me if I had "the other parents permission to take my child out of Canada?" I was surprised as nobody had ever asked me that before and dd1 and I had the same surname at that time, turned out it was because Canada have a very stringent policy on child abduction. But since I was able to point out that dh was just behind me it was all ok.
I did wonder though what would have happened if I were a widow? would I have had to prove this?

alipiggie · 16/02/2009 02:01

Well just to be on the safe side, when I travel with my two boys this year. I am going to get a letter of permission from their father just in case and will also now take copies of their Birth Certificates as well. Somewhat makes a mockery of the Passport, since you need to provide the British Embassy in this case for me with them to even get a passport.

Ivykaty44 · 16/02/2009 09:26

Linnet The immigration in uk have a databse of deaths - so no you wouldn't have to prove it just tell them when he died and name - it could then be checked. Whether they would co operate with canandian counter parts I dont know. Certainly coming into the uk they can tell whether you are dead or alive if they coose to look at the database

This was how and how they have caught ID fraud of people using dead persons ID, when the con person travells back into the uk the details date of birth and name etc can be checked to see if the person is actaully alive.

Passports and GRO are all now one depatment for this reason - so they have all the vitals in one place and can hopefully stop people using dead peoples ID.

oldraver · 16/02/2009 21:09

My parents frequently took DS 1 abroad (and just realised Mexico tho was a few years ago) and I always wrote a letter of permission for them. I was hoping it would cover medical care as well. They didnt have the same name but were never questioned, it is about 6 years ago since they last went with him. They have the same name as DS2 but I think anyone would realise they wern't the parents lol

Immigration was having a siesta not around when we went to Spain a few months ago

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