MN1 Referees - Online Forms - bug or new requirement?

[bcitaly]

HI all,

I am applying for my son to register as a British national. He is 4 years old, he was born in the UK and both my wife and I have EU Permanent Residence in the UK on our own rights - so we are applying through section 1(3). As I am filling in the Referees section, the following requirement is stated:

Your first referee
Referees must:
...
know or have known the applicant personally for more than 3 years


However the paper based form does NOT state the requirement that the referee needs to know the child for more than 3 years. It is not on the form guide either.

So should the referee know the child for more than 3 years or not? Is this a bug on the MN1 online form? It looks like the Referee form for MN1 is a literal copy of the AN form. Our professional referee would be the Nursery Manager who has worked at nursery for 2 years only (and therefore only knows my son for about this length of time).

This is the typical question where everyone says something different. I would greatly appreciate if someone can bring clarity to this subject.

[cyclina1]

it is not necessary to know the infant or child for 3 years.