A British couple are facing the heartbreaking prospect of having to leave their newborn baby daughter in China due to issues with getting her a passport. Callum Bentley and his wife Neelam are currently living in Shanghai, where they work as teacher.
Baby Isabelle was born in February and the family is due to return to the UK in July after completing two years of work in China. With that in mind, they set the wheels in motion to get Isabelle a passport soon after she was born, reports StokeonTrentLive.
Callum, 32, had a meeting with a British government representative in Shanghai and believed that the application was moving forward. But then in April the city went into a strict lockdown as part of China's strategy to control Covid.
Since then, the Passport Office has requested the original copy of Isabelle's birth certificate in order to produce the passport. But lockdown restrictions have been so tight that the postal service has been suspended, meaning he cannot send the document.
It means that Callum, from Stoke-on-Trent and Neelam, 36 and from Birmingham, are now in fear that they will have no choice but to head back to the UK without their daughter when their visas expire at the end of July.
Callum said: "We received her birth certificate in early March and I made an appointment with the passport people here to start the application on the 17th, but it was cancelled due to the Covid outbreak, so we rearranged it for March 28. All the paperwork was submitted and the documents were sent off to the UK on the 30th. They took the payment two weeks later and we heard nothing from the Passport Office after this.
"On Friday, May 12, six weeks after I applied, HMPO emailed to ask for the original birth certificate. I'd taken it with me when I went to the original appointment here, but they just made a photocopy and sent it to the UK. I don't understand why they didn't send off the original if a photocopy wasn't acceptable.
"We went into lockdown two days after that face-to-face appointment. We can't leave our apartment, and the postal service in Shanghai is currently suspended. I don't know when I will be able to post it, and either way it could be weeks for it to be processed. It's time we don't have. "
Callum said he had been calling the Passport Office regularly, but the calls weren't getting through. And emails seemed to generate only automated responses.
He added: "We're not trying to jump the queue or have anyone else's passports pushed back to process ours. We don't even need a passport as such, just something official that says our daughter can travel back to the UK.
"We just want to speak to a person. It's so frustrating that everywhere you go it's all done by computers and by email and you can't actually speak to a human to explain the situation. We're facing the risk of being separated from our 12-week-old daughter. My mum wants us back, but most importantly, she wants her granddaughter home."
Callum's mum Jackie, 60, who lives in Birches Head, said: "I've never even met my granddaughter, and the thought that she might have to stay there is just horrible. It's not even as if I can go and visit them."
StokeonTrentLive contacted the Home Office and it is understood that the case is being looked at.
A spokesman for the Home Office said the department could not comment on an individual case, but added: "The overwhelming majority of applications are completed within 10 weeks, with the latest figures showing 90% were completed within six weeks. But we cannot compromise security checks and people should apply with plenty of time prior to travelling.”
