Iranian 'sex toy smuggler' wins right to stay in Britain after claiming X-rated job would see him jailed back home
29 April 2025, 13:44
An Iranian asylum seeker has won the right to stay in Britain after claiming his 'sex toy smuggling' business would see him jailed if he returned home.
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The anonymous man, whose business involved importing adult devices, including vibrators, and ferrying them across the border, claimed he'd be looked upon 'adversely' if he returned home.
Under Sharia law, which is currently implemented by the Iranian government, sex toys remain illegal. The ban also extends to bringing devices into the country.
The asylum seeker is said to have applied for refugee status in the UK after claiming his job would see him face persecution - a claim that was dismissed as 'implausible' by a lower-tier hearing.
The Iranian man said he had come to the "adverse attention of the Iranian authorities as a smuggler of sex toys".
However, the tribunal dismissed his story, claiming he had given "inconsistent evidence about the number of boxes he smuggled".
He also claimed he would be prosecuted in his home country for campaigning against Tehran's current regime in London - footage of which was circulated on social media. This was also dismissed as a ruse by the hearing, according to papers seen by The Telegraph.
However, following an appeal, the Upper Tribunal of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber, the First-tier Tribunal (FTT), decided the initial hearing had made a mistake.
The Iranian, who had been in the UK for around four years, subsequently went on to win his appeal.
It was decided that given the circulation of footage, Iran would breach his human rights under the Refugee Convention.
Upper Tribunal Judge Paul Lodato ruled that the Iranian man would ultimately face “real risk of persecution” if he were to return home.
He said: 'While it would be difficult to disagree with the FTT judge's findings that he could not be described as a central or prominent figure among these crowds, what this pattern of conduct does tend to show is that he has been committed to protesting against the Iranian regime over a period of almost four years since soon after he arrived in the UK.
It comes as LBC has been given exclusive access to new AI technology designed to cut the amount of time it takes to process asylum claims in England.
The Chat-GPT-style software will cut the amount of time caseworkers spend working on each individual claim by up to an hour, and with a backlog of more than 90,000 cases, that equates to nearly 44 years of working time.
