Part 3: Fake News, the UK Home Office and Clennells

Q: Why is there a part 3 to this? Haven't you covered all angles already? Is there more to this story?

A: The statistics suggest otherwise, I have had a massive surge of traffic to my blog since about the 28th February. Ironically, one of the biggest source of traffic is the Guardian article which allowed Irene free reign to give her side of the story. I've written two pieces so far which have attracted a huge volume of comments - including from Irene Clennell herself. The problem with this approach ironically is that she is not a highly educated woman - even if she wanted to lie, she didn't know how to lie convincingly and I am surprised that an editor at the Guardian didn't hold her hand to help her, at least a little - I suppose they only went as far as to correct her broken English. So what was presented was a story riddled with contradictions and the Guardian readers may be very left-wing but they're not stupid at the end of the day, thus someone posted a link to my original article about this case and it was shared so much on social media it just went viral overnight. Suddenly, my blog became the one place people were coming to, because they realized that they were being fed a load of lies by journalists who were incompetent or manipulative.

The British Immigration & Justice system has been put in the spotlight.

Q: Oh, we're back to the whole 'fake news' thing once again then, are we?

A: It's not so much fake news but journalists who are more interested in giving their readers confirmation bias than challenging their points of views. The problem with the reporting of this story is that it is essentially Irene Clennell vs the Home Office - the Home Office cannot comment on an ongoing case, whilst Irene Clennell is talking to anyone who will listen to her because she's trying to raise money through donations at this stage. So all you have is a very one-sided story from a few very unreliable witnesses (Irene and Angela Clennell in particular) and I was waiting for a journalist to take a more 'investigative' approach to challenge these two women for the inconsistencies and contradictions in their stories - but it is utterly and totally disgraceful the way the standard of British journalism has fallen so low that no one has come along, so I stepped up to the mark as a blogger. And since I am the only one offering a far more balanced story, rather than one desperately trying to offer confirmation bias to left-wingers who hate the Tory government, I suppose that is why so many people have come here for the truth.

Q: Why would newspapers publish headlines that are clearly false then?

A: I'm afraid it is a sad sign of our times - president Trump made one ludicrous accusation after another, was he held up in the court of law for lying? No, instead he got elected to the most powerful position in the world in spite of his lying. So if the president of the USA can lie and get away with it, well! Stories like that satisfy a section of the readers of these newspapers, but more to the point, the Home Office isn't going to go round suing each and every single newspaper for publishing a lie - so it seems that these newspapers are operating in a consequences free environment. The editors and journalists can't be dumb enough to believe the lies they have been told by Angela and Irene, but they gladly publish them if it would help them sell more newspapers or get more click bait to their websites. The only thing that stops someone from telling lies to the media is libel - say if a single mother from London wants to claim that Donald Trump is the mother of her baby, no newspaper would publish that because they would get sued immediately my Trump's lawyers.

Social media has changed the way news is reported today.

Q: What about the reaction in the Singaporean community in the UK and in Singapore then?

A: There has been a wide range of reactions - let me cover some I have encountered. Firstly, there are those who are puzzled because Singaporeans in the UK can be split into two general categories: firstly there are those university students here, usually at pretty good universities. Then you have those who are working here and have work permits for those highly skilled, highly paid professional jobs. The vast majority of them couldn't be more different from Irene who is neither highly educated nor highly skilled. Furthermore if your parents can send you to a British university, then you'e from a rich family - if you have a job worthy of a work permit here in the UK, then let's just say you're not going to be poor. So there's a sense of, "hey the rest of us follow the rules here and have absolutely no problem with our visas, so what's your problem Irene? Why can't you follow the rules like the rest of us - why do you think the same rules that we all abide by somehow don't apply to you just because you have a British husband?" So that first reaction is a mix of puzzlement and suspicion because once you look closer at the case, it was clear where she messed up.

The second reaction that I have come across is that of sympathy - mostly from people who felt that it was unkind to separate a woman from her children. Strangely enough, most people who have made that point didn't really care so much about her being separated from her husband or sister-in-law, I guess it's an Asian thing perhaps? No matter how much the adults and parents mess up, the children are always innocent and should never ever suffer the consequences of the mistakes of adults. But those who offer that kind of sympathy offer it unconditionally, without caring about the merits of the case. One Singaporean woman I talked to said that she couldn't imagine being separated from her children whom she loved so dearly (and that was the basis why she felt sorry for Irene) - whilst I don't doubt that a) she loves her children and b) she is a kind person, she somehow made that about her and how much she loved her children, rather than about Irene per se. It's not for me to dictate how people (like this mother) should react to a story like that and this woman was just telling me her honest, almost knee-jerk response to the story. But yes, the ST as reported that Irene has received some offers of help from other very kind Singaporeans. 

The reaction in Singapore has been quite mixed.

The third reaction is that of anger: Irene and Angela lied to the press to obtain donations from a gullible British public, some Singaporeans feel that it was a devious, dishonest criminal act. Others have felt that Irene had slandered Singapore by making it sound like such a horrible place, again to milk the sympathies of the British public. Some Singaporeans take it very personally when anyone insults their country especially if they make Singapore look bad to the British public. For them, they get extremely angry the moment anyone (Singaporean or foreigner) says anything negative about Singapore. None of the articles in the media have painted Singapore in a positive light at all. I have come across angry comments by Singaporeans on social media, who were so incensed by Irene's actions that they have demanded that she be stripped of her Singaporean nationality and deported to the UK or India. The fact is Irene was deported to one of the world's richest countries and some Singaporeans felt that she had been ungrateful thus.

Finally, another reaction I have come across is that of trying to distance themselves from Irene, "she's not like the rest of us, she's not your typical Singaporean." Of course there are poorer, working class, uneducated Singaporeans in Singapore but they tend to be in Singapore rather than places like the UK or US. I get the impression that they are afraid that this one black sheep is going to make the rest of the Singaporean diaspora look bad - like we're desperate, poor migrants from some pathetic, third world country desperate to stay in the UK and take advantage of the welfare state here when Singapore is actually a very rich country. Heck, British tourists find Singapore expensive compared to other places, even Japan. So they are practically 'disowning' Irene on social media, because they just don't want the good name of Singapore to be associated with a woman like that. Some have suggested that she should be deported from Singapore back to India, since she doesn't want to be in Singapore and the UK doesn't want to take her.

Singaporeans do care about the image of their country abroad!

Q: There is a story involving an "Orrin John Clennell" from the Chester-le-Street area involved in theft and domestic violence. According to the article, "He admitted a charge of assault causing actual bodily harm, as a result of an attack on an ex-partner, in the presence of her child, in June last year." Might this be Irene's son? Or her husband, given that both her husband and son have the fist name John? Some people prefer to use their middle names.

A: The news article was printed in 2015 and it was reported that Orrin was 35 at the time. That makes his date of birth 1980 (unlike the Buzzfeed and Sun journalists, I can do basic maths). That would make him way too young to be John senior (who married Irene in 1990) and that also means that it is not her son. Given that Clennell is a fairly unusual surname and this man is from the same area as Irene, John and Angela Clennell (the town of Chester-le-Street, in County Durham, NE England), it is safe to assume that he is related to them, possibly a son of Angela (same address on electoral register). The story makes a sad read, no man should ever get away with physically harming a woman like that but actually it doesn't have anything to do with Irene's immigration case as she wasn't personally involved in the crimes committed by Orrin. Simply highlighting the story makes the Clennell family look back though, but since one of my readers pointed this out to me, I looked at it since the news report is in the public domain anyway. I did do a thorough search for other things on Orrin John Clennell but found nothing. Let's move on, shall we?

Q: What about the news report regarding "Sonny Clennell" arrested for burglary in April 2010? Could this be one of Irene's sons then - the younger one? If Irene's son is indeed a convicted criminal, does it affect her case?

Looks like the Clennells have had their share of criminals.

A: Well yes, that is right: it is clearly her son. In another news article published last week, it was confirmed that Irene has two sons: John 27 and Sonny 25.  The ages do match up - so Sonny did have a brush with the law back when he was 18 - that's 7 years ago. Knowing Irene, she probably would have blamed the Home Office for it as well. I would blame Irene for not being there for her sons when she chose to stay on in Singapore to care for her parents without making sure that she wasn't going to be shut out of the UK immigration system. You can wax lyrical about her being a good daughter but what about being a good mother then? She made a stupid error and her sons are the innocent victims of her folly. But regardless of the crimes that Sonny and Orrin have committed, does Irene still have a right to a family life, even if Irene herself is not involved or implicated in any of these cases? Would this have worked against her when presenting a case to the Home Office? Don't forget, Irene broke the law as well when she became an illegal immigrant by overstaying her visitor's visa. Whether or not this may not be relevant to the case, that's for the Home Office to decide.

Q: Aren't you just being very vindictive in dragging their family's name through the dirt like this? Regardless of what has happened with the Clennells, is any of this relevant to Irene's deportation and appeal at all?

A: Well Angela presented a story to the press about trying to reunite Irene Clennell with her family in England, The public who have donated money to Irene deserve to know what this family is like. All the information I have presented are merely news stories that are archived on the internet. If you don't want your name associated with a court case, then don't break the law in the first place. I grant you that Irene's crime of overstaying her visa is a lesser of crimes when you compare it to what her other family members have committed (burglary, theft, domestic violence, etc), but the very newspapers who are so very keen to publish her stories today were the same newspapers who were also happy to report the stories of her other family members getting arrested for their crimes. What is sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander - these newspapers don't care, they just want to fill their pages with interesting stories.

Q: A lot of fuss has been made about the way Irene was deported on a Sunday, how she wasn't allowed to even pick up her clothes or say goodbye to her husband. Could you comment on the way she was treated then?

A: There are procedures and guidelines when it comes to deportations - Irene is an extremely unreliable witness, she has lied so many times and I find it very hard to believe her version of the story. Typically, you are given 14 to 28 days to leave the UK on your own accord once you lose your residency or when your visa runs out. She was then removed to a detention center when she became an illegal immigrant and would have been told that deportation was imminent during the six weeks she had spent in detention. She was at best in denial about the whole situation but she really should have known this was coming. Deportations can take place on any day of the week, they were not breaking any rules when they chose to book her on a Sunday flight - if you were in her position would you:

1. Make a genuine effort to find a workable solution with the lawyers back in 2016, when you knew your visa was running out. Don't wait till the last minute, discuss your various options with an expert.

2. Wait till your visa expires, then get detained for six weeks as an illegal immigrant, then when you find out that you're finally being put on a plane to Singapore, then you wanna spring into action and try to call a lawyer only then?

There comes a point when you have to question her actions leading up to the day when she got deported - I can't read her mind. Why she was so incredibly disorganized and handled the matter so poorly? One reader suggested that she was like one of those people who are in a lot of debt and simply bury their heads in the sand, refuse to take phone calls or open letters/emails, hoping that the problem will just disappear if they block out the world. Well that's not an option if you're serious about sorting out your problems. Heck, even for something like one's tax return, if you don't file your tax return on time, the government will fine you for it - you can't plead, "I was so stressed and upset about having to pay my taxes, can't you be nice and make an exception?" The government won't, because rules are rules and once you start making an exception, you set a precedent then the rules become meaningless. Why should the government start making exceptions then, what is their incentive to do so? That's the last thing the government wants and the simple solution is to simple abide by the rules - rules were made for people to follow, not break. #Commonsense

Q: It was reported in the ST that "Her in-laws are still looking for immigration lawyers in Britain." What the hell? You mean the Clennells had yet to seek proper legal help for Irene's case at this stage?

A: Yes, actually that ST article by Ng Jun Sen was pretty spot on and well written - thank you Mr Ng. It puts ST up there with the BBC as the only two news organisations who have reported this case accurately without getting the dates wrong. I was never a fan of ST for all those years growing up in Singapore but on this occasion, they did report this case accurately! Is it too much to expect these terrible British journalists to do their job properly? Okay I digress, yes it seems that by her own admission, the Clennells have yet to engage the services of a lawyer. What the hell have they been doing then? Are her in-laws deliberately trying to sabotage Irene's case? And isn't that money raised (over £53,000 now) supposed to have been for Irene's legal fees to make this appeal? So it's not like they can't afford to pay a lawyer - money isn't the issue. Irene was deported from the UK on the 26th February, that means they have until just the 26th March to do her appeal. It is already the 5th March today, she has just 3 weeks left to do this appeal.

Now trying to appeal such a deportation is a very complex piece of legal work - even if you were to engage the services of a great immigration lawyer, you need to give the lawyer time to study the case, piece together all the paperwork about everything that has happened thus far. In Irene's case, it is pretty darn complex as the story begins back in 1988 when she first went to the UK and met her husband John soon after. The lawyer has to build up a convincing picture of their 27 year long marriage and show evidence of genuine family life - needless to say, with Irene being in Singapore and John being in Chester-le-Street, England, it is a tight deadline for any lawyer to work to. The longer they leave it, the more impossible the task will become. Even if great lawyers were available,they would look at the time line and say, "What? Are you kidding me? No way! I can't possibly complete such a complex appeal in under 3 weeks, I don't want to be set up to fail." Maybe an unscrupulous lawyer would agree to take the appeal and their money (£53,000 - that's a lot of money)  submit a hastily put together appeal that wouldn't stand up to scrutiny.

This has even led some people to speculate if this has been about the money all along, after all, we're talking about a sum of money in her hands that's £53,000 - that's a lot of money, enough to buy a modest house in a small town like Chester-le-Street where prices for a two-bedroom terraced house starts from around £48,000.  But this is one of the poorer regions in the UK, despite such low property prices, many residents in such towns like that are still unable to afford to buy their own homes and have to instead rent from local council at subsidized rates. Could it be the case that no decent lawyer would take this case on (because of the very tight deadline involved), after all, once you have donated the money over to her on her GoFundMe page, is she obliged to use the money for what she claimed it was for? How are you going to check how she is spending that money then? The money is handed over on the basis of trust with no guarantees about how it will ultimately be spent. I only had to do a google search for "UK immigration lawyers" and google found me about 3.85 million results in 0.71 seconds. There is certainly no shortage of good immigration lawyers in the UK, why didn't Irene approach one last year and why hasn't Angela found one for her yet?

No shortage of lawyers in the UK!

Q: In the ST article, it was reported that, "The incident meant that Mrs Clennell did not visit her family between 2007 and 2013, as she mistakenly thought there was a five-year travel ban against her." Is this woman for real? If she really cared for her family, how could she have gotten this wrong? Why didn't they visit her in Singapore?

A: Even if she did have a travel ban against her, she could have easily arranged a trip to France or Ireland and met her family there. Irene wasn't in prison in Singapore, she was free to leave the country and travel anywhere she liked. If she was genuine about seeing her family, then why couldn't they have met in somewhere like Paris or Dublin - the two nearest capital cities to the UK? Likewise, why couldn't her family get on a plane to visit her in Singapore? The Home Office didn't tell her, "you can't see your family for five years" even if they did slap a five-year travel ban against her. I knew of this case where a Singaporean man couldn't set foot in Singapore as he dodged his NS obligations to complete his further education and would be arrested if he ever returned to Singapore. In order to see his parents, they would often meet up in Malaysia or Thailand. In failing to clarify whether or not there genuinely was a five-year travel ban slapped on her, it shows Irene wasn't really that keen to be with her family when there were ways to meet them.

Q: SNP MP Joanna Cherry has written to the Home Secretary protesting against the treatment of Irene Clennell. In her letter (which she published on Twitter), she claimed that Irene had been in the country for nearly 30 years. How can an MP behave so irresponsibly, by acting on a case despite not having the right facts?

A: This MP is from the SNP, they are so left-wing and they hate the Tories so much. As long as they can get the Scottish people to hate the Tories even more, the SNP have the ultimate goal of independence, breaking away from the rest of the UK. If they can show the people of Scotland that the Tories in London are evil bastards whilst the SNP are a lot kinder and nicer, then someone like MP Joanna Cherry really don't care if she is writing that letter based on fake news and doesn't really care because she is counting on the fact that many media outlets in the UK have quoted that figure of "30 years", the lie told by Angela Clennell, so even if she is caught out, she will be able to claim that she read that figure in the newspapers. Like I said, Irene was a resident in North-East England - it is just bizarre that an SNP MP from Scotland, when really it should be Irene and John's MP (Kevan Jones, Labour) that should be the one fighting for Irene's right to return. Can you see how Irene's story has been used as a political football in the Scottish fight for independence, which seemingly has nothing to do with Irene's case? MP Cherry is far more interested in slagging off the Tories than helping Irene Clennell and she is doing it with fake news. That's just wrong on so many levels.

But look at the way president Trump has lied so many times throughout his campaign and since he's been in office. I just want to point out that many politicians lack basic integrity whether they are from the left or from the right - they are all equally dishonest and manipulative, they will lie just to get what they want. The Republican party in America is built on lies, the SNP is from the opposite end of the spectrum but they are just as willing to lie. Heck, during the infamous MP's expenses scandal, so many MPs from across the political spectrum from left to right were all guilty of illegal claiming expenses they weren't entitled to - left wing or right wing, they are all just as rotten as each other. Politicians will gladly tell you lies and feed you fake news stories just to offer you that confirmation bias you want and get you to vote for them. I don't trust politicians and just because an MP tweets something doesn't mean it is true - be careful what you read on social media and always double check your facts just in case you are fed fake news.

Q: Have you written to MP Cherry and other journalists, such as Emily Duggan of Buzzfeed, informing them that they are wrong about the facts of the case, especially about the number of years that Irene Clennell has actually lived in the UK? Surely they would care about such details, right? Maybe not the journalists but a politician?

A: Yes, I have written to MP Joanna Cherry along with a number of journalists. No they don't seem to care as not a single one of them have responded to me. And so that is why I need to keep on blogging to get the truth out there.

Q: I heard Irene has reached out to you to offer you the facts of the case. Have you accepted her offer? You have managed to snag exclusives with other controversial people on your blog before like Alvin Tan in the US.

A: I am thinking about it. The problem is that she has proven to be an unreliable witness, her stories contradict themselves and I refused to be used like a pawn her quest for more donations. How would she react if I told her, "Irene you're lying to me, you're not telling the truth." To be fair, I have already said some rather awful things about her and her family, why would she then want to collaborate with me and do an article with me then when so many other websites and newspapers have gladly allowed her free reign to say what the hell she wants? She has only so many hours a day, she would want to deal with the sections of the media which are sympathetic to her case, not people like me. I've made it clear, I deal with facts and I called her a liar. That is, if she is rational, of course - I can only at best describe her as 'very disorganized' and delusion - that's already me being kind with my words.

Q: You seem quite happy to defend the Home Office and the UK government's stance in the Irene Clennell case, yet others have been critical. Do you accept that they are not always perfect and they are inconsistent?

A: This needs clarification. In the vast majority of cases, when you follow the rules, then civil servants will just process your application for whatever visa or naturalization, it's super straightforward. It's just paperwork, there's no discretion required in such cases when you follow the rules. It's like renewing your driver's license or paying your income tax, for the vast majority of us, our dealings with the government are so straightforward we get it done super quickly. It is only cases like Irene Clennell where she has clearly broken the rules in numerous occasions because she thought that the rules didn't apply to her, then in such more complex cases, rulings will have to be made after the Home Office considers the individual merits of the case. Yyou can then accuse them of being 'inconsistent' over the years - why was case A approved when case B was rejected when both cases were equally weak and lacked any merit? That has happened over the years and I'll turn this over to my reader 'Shiv' who can explain it better than I ever can.

"I'm an ex Civil Servant who worked in media relations at the centre of UK Government so take a nonpartisan interest in policy, politics, law and the media. I left to experience Australian immigration as a foreign-born Brit and now passed the Singaporean system. To pick up on Peter Lim's point of UK's 'liberal compassionate' legal system, indeed it was so during the 2000s Labour era when Clennell kept on failing ILR applications yet remained. The immigration agency was dysfunctional and a Home Secretary publicly declared the Home Office as "not fit for purpose." Judges were philosophically very liberal in making decisions emphasizing the individual's human rights and private right to family life, even when infamously at odds with the collective society (re:hate preachers). This extremely liberal-libertarian approach continued under the 'heir to Blair' Tory PM Cameron esp during liberal coalition.

Roll on 2015 when the liberals were annihilated at election, with almost every Cabinet Minister fired by their own constituents along with the hopeful Labour Chancellor. Nick Clegg and Labour's Ed Milband resigned the day after and even the Liberal Tory PM David Cameron had his scalp claimed barely a year later, as once again the voters defied the press and pollsters and again silently voted for change within the privacy of the voting booth. So the public mood has shifted to conservatism, with a 'proper' Tory PM who despite unelected is incredibly popular with voters across political (tribalism is dead) and Brexit persuasions. The media has lost influence and thus power as voters ignore them, and May appeals directly to public opinion. Hence the judiciary reluctantly declaring the Tories £18,600 immigration rule as lawful. Clennell was the first high profile casualty and the Home Office deported on Sunday to prevent her riding the legal merry-go-round that would have seen her remain in the UK into her OAP years, that so many had taken advantage of. Not a single comment from a QC or even Shadow Attorney General Shami Chakrabarti, ex director of campaign organisation Liberty. The judiciary fear a public backlash similar to MPs expenses, bankers bonuses, tax avoiding MNCs and of course the media phone hacking scandal.

You have PM Theresa May who quietly diligently studied immigration for 6 years as the longest serving Home Secretary, knows every crack and hole. Her protege Home Secretary is Amber Rudd, is an accomplished barrister charged with devising a single immigration system as demanded by the public 'as tough' as Australia's. The Clennell case is gesture signalling they will turn the screws on a detached lofty judiciary. Liberal Conservatism is in, Libertarian individualistic rights is out. Much like gay marriage, mixed race relationships, equal opps won't change. Though of interest is individual vs collective in policy and law. Criminal punishment aside, will UK become a little bit Singaporean? Perhaps. The UK public is definitely swaying towards unashamedly conservative Australian thinking. Even liberal Canada is institutionally conservative, the only country in the world to demand families sponsor refugees, if unselected by govt. Immigration and lifestyle TV shows, social media and global news has showed the British you can be liberal, compassionate and expect everyone to obey the rules. UK immigration is now deemed as onerous and broken, almost written for lawyers and 'chancers' to exploit loopholes, with naive Ministers and Judges often taking a philosophically principled over pragmatic decsion-making. Contrast with how often do you read about British expats being thrown out of Singapore or Australia on global News sites? Of course those authorities separate families etc but no one cares, not their politicians nor their public if the individual has flouted the rule. Being disorganized, poverty or stupidity counts for nothing. Coming from Singapore, Irene Clennell should have been mindful of this.

Okay, that's it from me for now. Let's see how you guys react to this latest piece and who knows, there may be a part 4 if you guys are still interested in this story, Let me know what you think, leave a comment. Many thanks for reading!