I often wonder about whether the UK civil servants put bureaucracy before compassion.
For instance today's headlines about the 92 gran
A Home Office decision to deport a 92-year-old widow who wanted to spend the “end of her days” with her only child in Britain could kill the pensioner, her daughter has said.
Myrtle Cothill, who was born under the British flag in 1924 and whose father fought for Britain in the first world war, has been ordered to travel to Heathrow on Tuesday for a flight to South Africa.
Mary Wills, her daughter, told the Guardian that officials said she should go back to South Africa, where she has no family, and seek help from the Red Cross.
The pensioner has fought a campaign since last year to stay with 66-year-old Wills in Poole, arguing she has no support in South Africa and is independent from the state with her £300-a-month pension.
“My mother is in a terrible state. She is just shaking and shaking,” said Wills. “It is so cruel. We don’t know what to do.” She added that officials said the government would pay for her flight to South Africa and give her “£1,000 to tide her over”.
“My mother gets a private pension from my late father so she wouldn’t qualify for assistance from Red Cross. But she should be with her family. The heartbreak of leaving us at her age could finish her off and finish me off, too,” said Wills.
“If she doesn’t go to the airport on Tuesday, they will probably take her to detention centre. That will be signing her death certificate,” she warned.
In December, Cothill said: “I don’t want to go. I’ve got nobody there and I am not well enough to travel. I’m very upset. I’m very old. I’m 92. I want to live with my daughter for the end of my days.”
Cothill, whose husband died more than 40 years ago, survived on her own in South Africa with the support of her friends and her local church. But as she got older and her community thinned, it became apparent to her that she needed to be cared for by her daughter in Britain. She has an enlarged heart and poor hearing and has lost the sight in one eye
The Home Office says that Cothill’s application was rejected as her “condition was not deemed to be life-threatening” and that “suitable medical treatment” was available in her country of origin.She has been in Dorset since February 2014 and made an application to the Home Office for leave to remain the country as an adult dependent on human rights grounds.
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