What price love? The Home Office can tell you
Young wife at risk of deportation after Government tightens financial rules
THE lives of two newly weds were brought crashing down around them on Friday after they learned one of them is going to be deported in a fortnight if they cannot prove how much they earn.
Young couple Ross and Alice Addison, who have made their home in Oban, discovered on January 15 that Alice is at risk of deportation due to tightened financial rules that govern whether foreign nationals can remain in the country.
Time-served joiner Mr Addison, 24, from Oban, met Alice, the love of his life, in Australia when he was travelling and, following a gap year, he brought her to the town to live.
Mrs Addison, 29, is a Hong Kong British national who spent three years in Bristol studying for a degree in politics.
The couple married in November and they have a 14-monthold son, Arran.
In the past few weeks, as Mrs Addison’s visitor visa came up for renewal, the couple decided to make a formal application for residency with a marriage visa. Something that Mr Addison says ‘has cost us our life savings’.
The couple were then given a short time by the Home Office to answer probing questions into their relationship and the income from Mr Addison’s joinery and construction business.
Mr Addison employs three people in his business and his overall income, with the necessary deductions, comes slightly short of the amount required by the Home Office for his wife to remain in the country.
Receiving support from his accountant at Wylie and Bisset in Oban, Mr Addison hopes that he can argue that his income is enough to support his wife and family. Something he has already been doing for the last two years.
The couple say they will both move out of the country if Mrs Addison is deported.
Mr Addison continued: ‘ We want to live in the UK, have a small business and raise our family together.
‘I hope the Home Office will see sense and allow this to happen. Otherwise the repercussions could be wide reaching.’
Argyll and Bute MP Brendan O’Hara has been helping the couple, and representations have already been made to the Home Office in this case.