Passport Office makes old lady prove she is British.

[ShosheTheGhoshe]

My Dad phoned earlier, he was quite upset for his eladerly neighbour.

At 72 she had applied for her first passport, she got the forms and her daughter filled them out and sent them off.

She got a letter back telling her to go to a passport office in Yeovil (the live in Weymouth).

She had to take 3 proofs of identity and her mothers birth certificate!

Anyway Dad went with her, and on getting there they were shown into a office and the door was locked!

The neighbour was asked all sorts of questions, about her heritage, and then taken to another office where she was asked the same questions!

This lady has never been out of Dorset, has a very English name, and has been a SAHM all her life till widowed recently!

Why would she have been treated like this!

i thought 'never been out of dorset' was quite funny

Apparently SEA every time they asked her a question she kept repeating 'But I have never been out of Dorset'

Yes Dad (think Victor Meldrew as he has got older and Mum has gone, she used to batter down some of his grumpiness) is going to write (he does tend to write to the Times rather a lot So no doubt they will get a letter about it as well)

I had a face to face interview nearly 20 years ago to get an NI number (hadn't got one automatically), and they were suspicious that I was trying to get a second one or something. I say 'interview' though; basically someone put their head round the door, (I think) saw I was white and said oh that's fine, I'm sure it's ok.
TBH I find that even more shocking!
I think if you do have these rules you HAVE to treat everyone just the same, be they little old ladies or scary youths.

Well Mohammed al fayed is getting on a bit and they still haven't given him a passport !

The application form notes say that first time applicants may be asked to attend an interview (DH, recently naturalised picked up forms yesterday as the online process doesn't seem to be able to cope if you aren't claiming citizenship through descent!)

I had a job issuing passports overseas and we used to interview every first time applicant and anyone who wasn't clearly identifiable from their previous British passport. That was in the days when the Passport Office here would issue a passport on two crappy passport photos and a copy birth certificate issued by the GRO the day before. That was in the early 1990s and identity theft was rife then. Trick then was to apply for passport in name of someone else, get passport then change name by deed poll into your real name.

I'm afraid these are the times we live in.

British citizenship is based on citizenship of parents, and is granted on sight of the original documents. Parents' birth certificates are required for all first passports.

I suspect that given this lady's age, it would have been her father's birth certificate that was more relevent.

It states on the website that you need your own birth certificate if you were born before 1983 and your mothers and your own birth certificate if you were born after 1983.

If this lady is old then she will have been born before 1983 - why then did she need her mothers birth certificate?

As this department is part of the certificates department they can look at the blardy original anyhow - so why would they need to see another copy when it isn't even in their own rules??