Navy pilot’s wife awarded visa to join him in UK
British pilot to be reunited with his wife after months of visa wrangling and one day of Telegraph publicity
The American wife of a Royal Navy pilot will be allowed into the UK after her plight was highlighted by The Daily Telegraph. Commander Simon Rawlins said his wife Marianne’s visa had been issued after months of uncertainty. The Home Office confirmed she was free to join her husband.
A BRITISH pilot whose American wife was left homeless because of visa bureaucracy will at last see her accepted into the UK after her plight was highlighted by The Daily Telegraph.
Commander Simon Rawlins’s wife Marianne said last night that her visa had finally been issued after months of uncertainty. The Home Office confirmed she was now free to join her husband.
In a statement, the department said: “We have received all the information we requested to process Mrs Rawlins’ application and we have today issued her visa. We have also contacted her to apologise for any inconvenience.”
Mrs Rawlins said she and her husband were “very grateful” for the public’s support when their case was brought to light.
The decorated Royal Navy pilot wrote a letter to The Daily Telegraph revealing that his wife, a US citizen from California, had been left in limbo despite numerous attempts to get answers from immigration officials.
Cdr Rawlins, 39, who is known as “Top Gun” among his colleagues, is a respected figure within the Armed Forces, having achieved a record number of flying hours for his service in Afghanistan.
In a previous interview, the naval officer, who has served 20 years in the Navy, described a series of high-risk raids on Taliban strongholds during the conflict. He clocked up more than 400 flying hours and nearly 200 missions, providing support for British and Nato troops in Afghanistan over five years. Cdr Rawlins was later posted to Los An- geles, where he met Marianne two years ago. The couple married in April this year, only for him to receive orders to return to the UK.
The couple began to get alarmed when, several months after Mrs Rawlins, 34, had submitted her visa application, they had received no word of it or of when she would be able to join him. Cdr Rawlins said he grew frustrated at the lack of progress, adding that he had paid hundreds of pounds attempting to speak to immigration officials on the phone.
She said she had joined an online forum “where I watch as people from all over the world – including Pakistan and Tunisia – are processed within mere weeks as I wait months”. She added that officials had “no accountability” and seemed “numb to the idea that this actually affects lives”.
Mrs Rawlins said she had resorted to sleeping at friends’ houses while she waited for news, saying she had become a “prisoner in my own country”.
She said: “Agreeing to move to the UK was a difficult decision for me because my family in the US is very small and incredibly close. I was willing to make these sacrifices because Simon’s job as a Royal Navy pilot is etched into the very fibre of who he is. When he got his orders to move to the UK… I never imagined the visa component would be this difficult.
“He is completely alone. He doesn’t want to decorate the house without his wife, so he sits in his empty home, surrounded by boxes filled with wedding gifts that are still wrapped.”
Last night Sir Julian Brazier, a former minister of defence, said: “It’s extremely good news that it’s been sorted out at last, but it is extraordinary that Commander Rawlins and his wife were put through all of that.
“It suggests to me that the current visa system is in need of an urgent overhaul. It is simply not right that any member of our Armed Forces should be placed in this situation.”
His comments were echoed by Colonel Richard Kemp, former Commander
‘It is simply not right that any member of our Armed Forces should be put in this situation’
of British Forces in Afghanistan, who said: “It’s disgraceful that a wife of a British serviceman, who is an American citizen, is unable to get access to this country or should be held up like this. He has served his country his entire career, he has put himself in harm’s way, yet people who have done nothing for this country seem to be able to much more freely come and go.”