Deported grandmother from Singapore fights for UK return
SINGAPORE: Twenty-seven years of marriage, two British sons and a granddaughter could not protect Singaporean Irene Clennell from deportation, but now the feisty grandma is fighting to get back to her family. Clennell, 52, was deported to Singapore Sunday, despite being the primary caregiver for her sickly British husband John, who she said has sunk into a mire of depression since she left. “He was crying,” she told AFP in an interview at her sister’s cramped suburban home in the Southeast Asian city state, where she is sleeping on the sofa as she tries to find a legal way back to her family in Britain.
John had femoral artery bypass in his leg last year and suffered a subsequent hernia. Since then, she said, he has struggled to walk far and needed help dressing himself. “Before, it was different because he was fit and well-he was able to look after himself. But now he can’t because of his condition,” she said, adding that she had been his sole caregiver at their County Durham home. Clennell has been holed-up at her sister’s Singapore flat, talking to the media and trying to coordinate her legal fight to be allowed back into Britain since she was deported Feb 26.
Her British sister-in-law has hired an immigration lawyer and set up a crowd funding campaign to cover her legal fees, which had raised more than £53,000 ($65,000) yesterday. Her husband is so desperate for them to be reunited he has written to a French minister asking whether they could live in France as a family, said Clennell, who arrived in Singapore with hardly any money or possessions after a period in UK immigration detention.
My mistake
Clennell first arrived in Britain in 1988 and worked as a receptionist at a London hotel where she met her husband, a construction worker. She was subsequently granted indefinite leave to remain in the country. But she lost this right after spending long periods of time in Singapore, initially to have help from her family raising her young children, and then to care for her elderly parents before their deaths. Clennell said she now regrets leaving for so long as she didn’t realize it would create so many problems. —AFP