A Nigerian girl has claimed before the High Court that she was brought to Ireland by a missionary priest when she was 16 years old, left by him in Dublin city centre and told by him to ask the first black person who came along for help. She said she never saw the missionary again.
The girl claimed she met the missionary after his car hit her in Lagos.
She also alleged that an uncle wanted to rape her "so many times" following the death of her father in 2000 and that her mother had run away after that uncle sought to take her as another wife.
Mr Justice Peart yesterday gave the girl leave to challenge, in judicial review proceedings, the process under which an order for her deportation was made. He said the girl had established an arguable case that the process was deficient.
In a reserved judgment, Mr Justice Peart said the girl was an unaccompanied minor when she arrived here. She had produced her birth certificate and claimed asylum. A social worker noted she had no family in this country, that her father was dead and she did not know the whereabouts of her mother.
She claimed that a man she was staying with wanted to rape her and his wives had used her as a housegirl. She feared being forced into sexual intercourse by her uncle. She referred to beatings, being tied to a tree, having no place of her own and sleeping in a passage.
She had been interviewed in the presence of a health representative and a member of the Refugee Legal Service in November 2002.
She said her leg was bruised in a car accident and the man who had hit her, who was a missionary, came to Ireland with her and showed the authorities at the airport two passports. However, she never had possession of hers.
After their arrival, the missionary left het in the city centre and told her to tell any black person she met that she needed help.
She said she cried and asked why he was doing that and he said he knew what he was doing and gave her a picture and a Bible. She never saw him again and did not know his first name. If she had to return to Nigeria, she would have nowhere to live and she would not be safe.
The report of her interview found it was impossible to verify her account of sexual abuse, but noted "the applicant's allegations of abuse are plausible, given her age and circumstances and taking into account human nature and societal mores in Nigeria", the judge said.
Mr Justice Peart said it was being claimed that the girl had brought her application for leave to appeal outside the required time limit.
However, she was a minor in a foreign country and this was a parlous position for any minor, no matter what lack of credibility might or might not exist in relation to how she came here, he said.
The court should apply, consistent with fairness and justice, as generous an amount of latitude as it could regarding the application of otherwise strict time limits. He said he would extend the time for bringing High Court proceedings.
Mr Justice Peart also said that in relation to best practice regarding the handling of applications by unaccompanied minors, he believed that what emerged from documents before him differed significantly from what had taken place in relation to the girl's application process.