Mother's despair as fiance set to be deported

From the archive, first published Friday 23rd Mar 2007.

A heartbroken Bradford women is fighting a desperate battle to save her fiance from being deported.

Barbara Firth is pleading with the Home Office not to fly Michael Bourne out of the country next week.

Mr Bourne was seized without warning on Thursday, handcuffed and locked up at a detention centre at Manchester Airport despite receiving a letter from the Home Office granting him temporary stay.

Speaking by phone from the detention centre, the former law student, who has been in the UK for almost ten years, said he wanted to come home to Miss Firth at the house they share in Wareham Corner, Holme Wood.

Fighting back tears, Mr Bourne said: "They detained me and say I am going to be flown out of the country on March 29. They put me in handcuffs and they are holding me in a room at the detention centre at Terminal 2."

He claims the Home Office is sending him back to Barbados because officials say he has no family, friends or home.

But distraught Miss Firth, 46, who has been Mr Bourne's partner for seven years, said: "What am I, invisible? He has never been in trouble with the police and they are treating him like a criminal."

The couple are bringing up Miss Firth's eight-year-old niece and grandson aged 11. "The children are devoted to Michael. Both have been in tears," she said.

She says Mr Bourne, 47, is also a much-loved dad and granddad to her four children and ten grandchildren.

All his family members, except his elderly mother in Barbados, live in London or the US.

In the Home Office letter granting him temporary stay in Britain, he was told to report to the Immigration and Nationality Directorate in Leeds when required. While complying with that requirement he was suddenly handcuffed and detained.

Mr Bourne's solicitor Aurangzeb Khan is appealing for him to be allowed to stay in Britain. Mr Khan, an immigration specialist, described the case as "tragic".

He said: "Michael Bourne has been here for nearly ten years. He has had a chequered immigration history but he has at all times remained here legally. He is in a long-term relationship and intends to marry and the couple are looking after two young children.

"There are strong human rights issues here. It would be unfair, unjust and unreasonable for the Home Office now to expect his partner Barbara and the two children, aged eight and 11, to go and live in Barbados.

"We have made strong representations to the Home Office about this matter. They should exercise compassion and discretion."

A Home Office spokesman said they could not comment on individual cases but the Government had made it clear it would take a robust approach to removing anyone who did not have a right to be here.

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