That Danny!
Martha Stewart, America’s best known TV lifestyle guru was refused an entry visa to the UK.
Martha Stewart, 66, a self-made TV personality, who made millions selling her brand of “homemaking” to US audiences, was found guilty of conspiracy, making false statements and obstruction of agency proceedings – all relating to her sale of stock in biotech company ImClone Systems Inc. in 2001. Stewart was sentenced to five months in prison and five months of house arrest.
The Home Office’s refusal to grant Martha Stewart a visa may result in some raised eyebrows. Although the Home Office can refuse a visa to anyone at its discretion, it does have fairly comprehensive and detailed guidelines on refusals. The two reasons which could potentially apply to Ms Stewart are on somewhat shaky grounds:
1. Refusal on grounds of criminal conviction – The rules state that an application should normally be refused if that person has been convicted of an offence in any country which, if committed in the UK, would be punishable by imprisonment of 12 months or more.
-> Interestingly, Martha Stewart’s sentence was ten months, of which five months we’re house arrest. I may be wrong, but I think it unlikely that the Home Office could consider that the sentence would have been longer in the UK, and even if they did, this would be pure speculation.
2. Refusal on grounds that exclusion is conducive to the public good
-> Stewart’s trip to the UK was for a speaking engagement at the Royal Academy and some business meetings. How the Home Office or embassy officials thought her visit would be any risk is difficult to explain.
Both of the above are discretionary and depend on the official’s assessment of the visa application.
The UK’s Independent newspaper speculated that “Lying to government agencies is a federal crime in the United States and could easily be considered a serious enough crime in Britain to warrant exclusion from the country.” Another possible reason was that the UK wanted to send out a message that celebrities are subject to the same restrictions as everybody else, although based on its own rules, it could have just as well approved Martha Stewart’s application.
Then again, the workings of visa regulations in both the US and Britain are somewhat difficult to predict, and tend to be somewhat arbitrary and often unreasonable. For example, since 1993 the US government has denied visa waiver to people with HIV or AIDS and made the obtaining of any visa very difficult and laden with conditions. This has been subject of quite a lot of campaigning, but to no avail.
The good news for Martha Stewart is that the UK Home Office is in fact much more forgiving than the US when it considers visas for ex-offenders. Whereas in the US your crimes will most likely exclude you forever, in the UK her sentence would be considered as “spent” and therefore no longer relevant after ten years. Even if Stewart is refused an appeal now, it is very likely that she will be granted a visa if she applies in three year’s time.
UPDATE (25 June 08, Midnight GMT): And… Boy George was refused an entry visa to the US today, because of “ongoing legal proceedings relating to a charge that he assaulted and falsely imprisoned a male escort who was allegedly chained to the wall of his east London home in April last year, a charge he denies”. Of course the two stories are unrelated. But you can’t help but put them next to each other. Can you?
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