As a result of Brexit, Norwegians living in the UK were required to apply to the EU settlement scheme – despite Norway not being a member state – to remain living in Britain.
But after former model turned yoga teacher Kari-Ann Moller was stopped by British immigration officials earlier this year and told she was not allowed to remain because of her Norwegian passport, her husband, Chris Jagger – brother of Rolling Stone Sir Mick – got involved.
Writing in the Times, he said he had uploaded a picture of Roxy Music’s 1972 album – on which she appears, dressed in satin frills, on the cover – to support his wife, who has lived in the UK for 74 years, in her application.
“Sir, My wife, Kari-Ann, who is Norwegian, has lived in the UK for 74 years but is now being asked to apply to the EU settlement scheme, so to support her application I have uploaded a picture of Roxy Music’s 1972 debut album, Roxy Music, as she is featured on the cover,” he wrote.
“I wonder if this is admissible evidence? Chris Jagger, Mudgley, Somerset.”
Usually acceptable documents include bank statements, council tax bills, electricity bills and GP appointment cards.
As well as appearing on Roxy Music’s debut album, Moller, who is now known as Jagger, also featured on the cover of Mott the Hoople’s 1974 album The Hoople and briefly in the 1967 film Casino Royale.
She told the newspaper she had been asked to supply “further information” to support her claim.
“The whole thing is an absolute nightmare,” she told the Times. “There is a risk that I may not be able to come back in if I go away. It is crazy because I don’t even speak Norwegian.”
Jagger, who was born in Arendal, in south-east Norway, in 1947, to a Norwegian airman and a British mother who took her to live in Cornwall. When she was 17 she urgently needed a passport to go on a modelling assignment in New York for Mary Quant and found the fastest way to do so was to get a temporary passport from the Norwegian embassy before later getting a full passport.
Photograph: dcphoto/Alamy
She married her husband 44 years ago. Between them they have five sons aged between 38 and 50 – three of whom are from their previous marriages and two together – and 14 grandchildren and live in Somerset.
She was stopped by an immigration official when she arrived at Bristol airport in March from Madeira, who asked her how long she had lived in Britain. When she told him 74 years, he reportedly told her that there was nothing to show that she lived in the UK at all.
After an hour she was reportedly released and told that she could remain for three months and that she could apply for EU settled status.
“The three months are up now,” she told the Times. “I don’t know if I can go out of the country and see my aunt in Norway.”
“Brexit – the whole thing is a disaster”, Jagger, who is also a musician, said. “You’ve got a government department spending time and money on dealing with this nonsense. I just wonder how many other people are in a difficult situation like this.”
The application process, he said, had so far taken him eight hours. “I uploaded her earlier Norwegian passports and as a bit of a joke I uploaded the Roxy Music cover.”
The Home Office has been contacted for comment.
A Home Office official said: “Border Force officers routinely carry out passport checks on passengers arriving in the UK. We are in contact with Ms Jagger and assisting her.”
