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HOME OFFICE CHAOS TAKES NEW TWIST
May 2, 2006 12:00 AM
Chesterfield resident Sharon Rogers was shocked to be detained at Manchester Airport on 27th February and grilled by Immigration Officers questioning her right to re-enter England. Sharon was returning with her husband and eldest daughter from a holiday visiting her stepson who is serving overseas as a helicopter pilot with the British Army.
Her shock has turned to anger over the last week as evidence of Home Office incompetence, in failing to deport hardened and dangerous criminals from overseas, has dominated the news.
Local MP Paul Holmes, who took up Sharon's case with the Home Office in March, says: "No wonder the Home Office release overseas criminals to offend again instead of deporting them. They are clearly focussing all their time and attention instead on the wrong people.
"Sharon has lived here over 50 years and worked and paid taxes as a Nurse for 32 years. In all that time the full extent of her law breaking is 3 points on her driving licence for speeding. She has been out of the country on holiday several times over the years but only now has been stopped, interrogated and threatened with deportation unless she can prove her residence here and pay £500 for the privilege. If she had been a terrorist or hardened criminal they have left it a bit late to do anything about it!
"The Home Office is an incompetent and chaotic shambles. I have known Sharon for 20 years and far from being an undesirable alien who should be deported she is a model citizen. Charles Clarke should concentrate on deporting criminals not hounding blameless residents of 50 years standing."
Sharon has an American father and English mother. Born in the USA, the family came to live in England when she was 3 years old. All Sharon's schooling was in England and this was followed by 32 years as a Nurse working in the NHS and now in Care Homes.
Her two children (now 25 and 21 years old) were born in England and grew up in Chesterfield. Her husband, Tony Rogers, is a local Borough and County Cllr. and fought every General Election from 1974 to 1997 as a Liberal Democrat Parliamentary candidate, first in Devon and then in Chesterfield.
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