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Case Study 7 |
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Settlement. In the summer of 200x a young Egyptian lady came to seek some advice for her elderly father and brother who had mental health problems. Mrs Z father and brother both lived in Egypt with Mrs Z's mother and sister. The eldest sister had never married and was there to look after her parents and ill brother. Mrs Z and another brother had married a British Citizens and settled in the United Kingdom. Both Mrs Z and her brother sponsored their father and brother to come to the United Kingdom as visitors. They wanted to spend some time with them and show them how people live in the United Kingdom. They were granted a visit visa. However on the very first day of arriving in the United Kingdom Mrs Z's father falls and breaks his hip. He is hospitalised and in a few days time, the Dr's have decided to operate on him. A few days later the operation is completed. When he came round from his induced unconsciousness, he is happy to see his family are all there to see him. However, Mrs Z is not in the right frame of mind, she is very disturbed and upset and so are the other members of the family. He just thinks that they are all very worried for him and he has a warm feeling in his soul to see that all his family are so concerned for his well being. What he does not know is that the family are hiding a tragedy. A tragedy that was to change his and everyone's life. Whilst Mrs Z's father is in hospital they had received bad news. Mrs Z's mother had passed away, she had a heart attack. This news was even more disturbing for the family because the mother was well, she was not ill and never complained of any chest pains and suddenly, just like that she had passed away. Mrs Z did not know how she was going to break the news to her father. The family decided that they wait for him to get out of hospital and then break the news to him. However a week later the family received further bad news, Mrs Z's sister who also lived in Egypt with the parents had passed away. She was suffering from cancer, but by the time the doctors realised it was too late and she had become another victim to this most dreaded of diseases. The circumstances for Mrs Z's father and brother had changed; they had no one that they could turn to for moral, emotional and physical support in Egypt. The brother is mentally unwell and needs attention all the time and the father who is frail also needs looking after. Mrs Z and her brother did not know what to do? How can they send them back home when they have no one else that would be able to look after them? It was not possible for Mrs Z or her brother to move back to Egypt because they had family, work and other commitments in the United Kingdom. It was such a sad situation and so genuine. The pleas in Mrs Z ‘s voice and eyes for help are still with me today. I explained to Mrs Z that the best course of action would be to forward an application to the Home Office on the basis that there had been a change in her families circumstances and that the father and brother are now dependant and therefore cannot return back to Egypt. I prepared the application, provided evidence of the change of circumstances and the dependency. The application was refused. We appealed against the decision and went into court. The Home Office presenting officer gave us a very hard time and in fact was very aggressive and rude. At that time I was anxious as to whether the Immigration Judge would take the Presenting Officer's comments at all seriously because we had advocated such a strong case. I felt we had done an excellent job in representing our case, but even then you can feel anxious, and due to the rudeness of the Home Office's representative, we had an underlying fear that maybe we had missed something. With great pride we won the appeal. Mrs Z and her family are taking care of her father and brother. They are all together to mourn the death of their loved ones and to share the happiness of being together and are enjoying life everyday. I get regular phone calls from Mrs Z, and I always have a smile on my face when I hear from her. The names and other details have been changed to protect the privacy and confidentiality of the individuals concerned. If you would like to leave a comment please visit our facebook page by clicking here. or have a case that you would like to publish on our website then please send us an email. 
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