Fixed Penalty - Effect on ILR

Dear All

Yesterday i was caught in shop lifting offence situation and was awarded a fixed peanlty by police on recomondation of the shop. Now it is not intentional and geninue mistake and they are not ready to listen. My Question is would this fixed penalty will have any affects on my further immigration status? I am due to apply for my ILR in few months and would this affect that? Do i need to delcare the offence in the application form? In that case, instead of paying fine, i am ready to go to court to fight and prove what ever happened is a mistake and not intentional

please advise ?

Thanks

shivuu006 wrote:Dear All

Yesterday i was caught in shop lifting offence situation and was awarded a fixed peanlty by police on recomondation of the shop. Now it is not intentional and geninue mistake and they are not ready to listen. My Question is would this fixed penalty will have any affects on my further immigration status? I am due to apply for my ILR in few months and would this affect that? Do i need to delcare the offence in the application form? In that case, instead of paying fine, i am ready to go to court to fight and prove what ever happened is a mistake and not intentional

please advise ?

Thanks

Your situation is complex. Paying the fine would mean accepting that you are guilty but going to coaurt might take forver to conclude the case. You might be eligible for ILR while the case is in courts and that will obvioulsy affect the outcome. I leave it to seniors here to advise u.

well, i spoke to police and they said it is not a crimial offence and there is no conviction. It is just like a parking fine, however they told me that an entry would be there in police database.

However there is a question in ILR application form

7 . 7 Have you or any dependants applying with you ever engaged in any other activities which might
indicate that you may not be considered to be persons of good character

So i do need to state the penalty i received in the application for the above question?

i am ready to go to court to fight and prove what ever happened is a mistake and not intentional

Can you explain why do you say that the charge levied upon you was a mistake and you did nothing intentionally?
In my opinion it will be better to declare the conviction in the ILR form, rather than hiding it.

When i went to selfserivce checkout, i had a quite a big shopping and i self checkout assitant came in three times to assist me. Also my 4 year old daughter was also trying to scan few things which made things worse. At that point i asked my wife to take over to do the scan and in that confusion i had put one bottle of medicine without scanning in bag. After scanning half the shopping we stopped there, paid the bill, then went to till and paid for the rest of the shopping. so you could see a bit of confusion prevailed which led this thing to happen.

When i went to selfserivce checkout, i had a quite a big shopping and i self checkout assitant came in three times to assist me. Also my 4 year old daughter was also trying to scan few things which made things worse. At that point i asked my wife to take over to do the scan and in that confusion i had put one bottle of medicine without scanning in bag. After scanning half the shopping we stopped there, paid the bill, t

That is rather unfortunate.

Hoping you have had no previous conviction and a clean past record, I guess you will be fine even if you declare the fixed penalty in the ILR form may be with a small covering note explaining in brief the circumstances that lead to the fixed penalty being issued.

munisa wrote:

shivuu006 wrote:Dear All

Yesterday i was caught in shop lifting offence situation and was awarded a fixed peanlty by police on recomondation of the shop. Now it is not intentional and geninue mistake and they are not ready to listen. My Question is would this fixed penalty will have any affects on my further immigration status? I am due to apply for my ILR in few months and would this affect that? Do i need to delcare the offence in the application form? In that case, instead of paying fine, i am ready to go to court to fight and prove what ever happened is a mistake and not intentional

please advise ?

Thanks

Your situation is complex. Paying the fine would mean accepting that you are guilty but going to coaurt might take forver to conclude the case. You might be eligible for ILR while the case is in courts and that will obvioulsy affect the outcome. I leave it to seniors here to advise u.

Paying fixed penalty does NOT mean acceptance of guilt - it is written on the penalty notice itself.

Thanks. Now Should I state this in the covering letter for ILR or in any specific section of the ILR form? Please advise

If the penalty notice says it isn't a criminal matter then no need to say anything if the question asked of you is "have you committed a criminal offence".

However, if you are asked a broader question along the lines of "is there any reason to consider you may not be a person of good character" then I would suggest mentioning your recent mishap.

The likelihood of UKBA refusing you on this alone is very slight, but if they were inclined to think it a relevant matter and you don't mention it then they may later try to take action against you for having obtained leave by deception.

It is established law that deception can be silent, or by omission, not just by telling lies.

It is better to mention it because in case if they will come to know about this they will treat it as deception. Fixed fines and no jail term are not treated as criminal actions mostly.

Beside that it is really absurd what has happened to you.... were you running away without paying even though you have one item un paid with all other paid items....?