Call to cut red tape and compensate the children sent to Oz
A CHILD migrant packed off alone to Australia aged eight last night called on the Government to recognise his plight and the many others like him as he battles for compensation.
Jim Muir was sent overseas in a state-backed postwar resettlement scheme aimed at easing the strain on orphanages and strengthening the British population abroad.
He was not orphaned but his dad’s death during the war forced his impoverished mum to send him away.
Jim, now 79, left Tilbury Docks in London aboard the SS Strathaird on May 12, 1948. He arrived six weeks later and was adopted by a doctor and his wife in Sydney who forced him to change his name to Michael Susman.
With no living relatives, Jim is attempting to prove he was sent away and is demanding compensation.
He draws parallels to the Windrush Scandal where hundreds of British subjects were in some cases thrown out of the UK.
Reunited
Jim said: “This is not about a single individual – this is more to do with the trials and tribulations that child migrants have already gone through and are having to go through again with very little proof of some of the criteria laid down by the Government.
“It means in the end they are not recognised or compensated. It is now six months since I started on this claim and I feel I have been left dangling.”
He said the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) “is sticking doggedly to its criteria”, similar to Windrush members who found it impossible to prove set criteria.
“All of us suffered in some form or other during this migration – one of the government’s most horrendous decisions,” he said.
Jim, a father of three living in Rayleigh, Essex, with wife Hilary, was told by the Child Migrants Trust charity he was not eligible for compensation. He lost an appeal because he cannot prove he was sent away by a church, charity or council.
Jim rebelled against his adopted family and school but would have stayed had he not ruptured his spleen falling from a fence. He returned to Britain aged 12 and was reunited with his remarried mother. She died aged 62 in 1972.
From 1945 to 1970 some 4,000 children went to Australia and Zimbabwe, with many alleging abuse.
Jim, a former car engineer, insisted nothing untoward happened to him.
He added: “The criteria is flawed as the child migrant cannot prove what agency dispatched them. There is no evidence after more than 70 years.”
The DHSC said that since April this year 1,500 child migrants have received compensation. It added: “We are considering Mr Muir’s case and will respond shortly.”