6 | PROTECTING STATELESS PERSONS FROM ARBITRARY DETENTION IN THE UNITED KINGDOM Anthony’s mother was from Liberia and his father from Zimbabwe. He is in his midthirties. During the years of political unrest in Zimbabwe, he spent some time in South Africa and Mozambique. He then claimed asylum in the UK. His claim was rejected and following a conviction for making and possessing a false document, Antony spent fourteen months detained under immigration powers. He signed up for voluntary return to Zimbabwe but the Zimbabwean authorities, without proof of identity, have refused to accept him as a national. He was released from detention following a judicial review proceeding which awarded him damages for unlawful detention. He made a statelessness application which was refused on the grounds that he has a deportation order pending. After being interviewed for this report, in May 2016 he was re-arrested when he went to report as part of his release conditions. The HO is now trying to assess whether he is a Nigerian national, based on some emails he had written while in detention, which hint that he could be from there, despite him claiming not to have any connection to it. He is married to a British national and his family has been separated by his detention. His wife suffers from mental health problems and his detention is exacerbating her condition. John is a man in his mid-forties who was born in South Sudan to Liberian parents. When he was five years old, he and his family moved to Liberia. During the conflict in Liberia, he lost contact with his family and the military abducted and tortured him, also forcibly conscripting him as a child soldier. John fled to the Netherlands as a minor and lived there irregularly for many years. He then came to the UK where he had some friends and applied for asylum. His asylum claim was refused and he became destitute. He was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison for dealing in class A drugs. He regrets his crime, but he stated that without the right to work or support, he was so desperate that he did not have any other choice. In addition to his prison sentence, John spent three years in immigration detention, during which he had a number of interviews with the Liberian, Nigerian and Sudanese embassies, all of which denied that he is a national. Following a judicial review which challenged the lawfulness of his detention, John was awarded damages for the last six months of his detention which was deemed to be unlawful. However, he was only released on electronic tagging with a curfew. After a year and nine months he was detained again for six and a half months because he breached the curfew conditions in order to attend the funeral of his stillborn twins. After further attempts to remove him failed, John was released on tag once again. The curfew that has been imposed on him requires him to be at home between 9 pm and 7 am each day. He also has to report to immigration authorities once a week. He made a statelessness application which was refused on the grounds that he has a criminal conviction.