Woman who legally ‘doesn’t exist’ can’t work, get a passport or live on her own

A British woman who discovered she ‘legally doesn’t exist’ after never getting registered as a baby says she feels like she’s been ‘wiped from the face of the earth’.

Caitlin Walton, 26, from Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, is classed by the government as an immigrant because she has no legal proof she was born in the UK.

Her mother, who she no longer speaks to, gave birth without any assistance in her home in Gateshead in 1997, she says, and Caitlin was never given a birth certificate.

But she only found out aged 19, after she left her mother’s home who told her she didn’t have her birth certificate.

Caitlin has found herself in bureaucratic limbo ever since, unable to obtain a national insurance number, passport or driving license due to the fact she legally ‘does not exist’.

In 2019 she attempted to apply for a passport, but was told by the Passport Office: ‘Before a registration could be authorised we would need to be satisfied, by means of independent documentary evidence, of the precise date and place of your birth.

‘There must also be a qualified person who can attend a register office to give information for the registration of the birth and to sign the register.

‘As it would appear that the above conditions cannot be fulfilled, the late registration of the birth cannot be authorised.’

Caitlin said she only managed to get a bank account after her auntie and cousin came in with her and pleaded with Halifax to give her an account.

The two relatives have had to provide Caitlin with everything since she turned 18, as she has no way to earn her own money.

Caitlin says she is technically classed as a ‘white British immigrant’ – despite having been born here – and faced years of trouble just to get a bank account.

She said: ‘I just want to be able to work and live a normal life but at the moment if I died, I would be untraceable.

‘The constant trauma of basically not really existing has been horrible.’

Growing up, Caitlin had no idea of the administrative nightmare she would one day face.

It began when she left home aged 18 and ‘that’s when everything started to unravel’.

With nowhere else to turn, Caitlin moved in with her aunt.

‘I wanted to get a job, but when I tried, I realised I had no way of proving my existence,” she said.

Caitlin has reached out to the civic centre for answers.

‘I went through a six-hour search at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Gateshead,’ she said, ‘but they couldn’t find any record of me being born there.’

Even a nationwide hospital birth record search came up empty.

Caitlin’s heartbreak was compounded when she had to request her medical records, only to find that there was no documentation of her life until she was three years old.

‘I feel totally invisible – I couldn’t understand why my mother would hide me for those first years, but it seems like she did,’ she said.

She has been told the Home Office can’t help her as she is not by public record a ‘British citizen’ while the General Register Office and Gateshead Council are unsure how to progress her case.

She has tried to get legal representation, but was quoted £20,000 by a lawyer.

‘It feels like I’ve been wiped from the face of the earth,’ Caitlin said.

The toll on her mental health has been immense.

‘There’s the trauma of what my mother did, but also the feeling that I have no control over my life.

Despite her efforts, Caitlin feels caught in a cycle of rejection.

‘I’ve gone to the police, but they told me it was a “family matter.” It’s like nobody cares.’

Caitlin’s mother and father are no longer in her life, and she’s lost contact with two other siblings who, she believes, also weren’t registered at birth.

‘I feel so alone – my mother’s abandoned me, my family won’t help, and now even the government seems indifferent.’

Living at her aunt’s house, Caitlin is desperate for a chance to build her own life.

‘I want to work, to rent my own place but without proof of who I am, I’m stuck.’

Her frustration grows as she reflects on her situation. ‘If anything happens to my aunt, I don’t even know where I’d go.

‘How can I have lived in this country my whole life but be invisible?’

Though she went to school, Caitlin remembers frequently moving when authorities raised questions about her background.

‘I was passed from school to school like a parcel. I’ve been in about ten schools.’

‘The government has a duty to help people like me. No one should go through life like this, unable to work, drive, or even prove they’re alive.’

The Home Office has been approached for comment.

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