Boxer for England left to face deportation
Home Office wants to send champion back to Nigeria. Gareth A Davies tells the stark story of Kelvin Fawaz
Little wonder Kelvin Bilal Fawaz, a former national amateur boxing champion who has fought five times for England, was in despair. He was snatched from his gym in Harlesden three weeks ago by undercover officers and was talking to The Sunday Telegraph from a detention centre. The Home Office wants to remove him from the United Kingdom.
The 29-year-old, who had aspirations to represent Great Britain at the Olympics in 2012 and 2016, came to the UK 14 years ago from Nigeria, having been told his father, from Lebanon, was here. His mother, from Benin, was an immigrant to Nigeria, where Fawaz was born. She was murdered when he was eight, and for six years he was raised by relatives.
When he came to London aged 14, he expected to meet his father. Instead, he was treated “like a slave” by the family who brought him here, and escaped two months later into the arms of social services, who placed him in foster care. Without parental guidance, Fawaz was rudderless, but when he took up boxing at the age of 17, it instilled a new discipline.
Fawaz was no saint, and was in trouble for minor offences, which included possession of cannabis and driving without a licence, but he has turned his life around. After winning the Amateur Boxing Association light-middleweight title in 2012 – the same belt which was won by Joe Calzaghe – and boxing for England, he was offered a three-year professional contract by promoter Frank Warren worth £240,000. But he was unable to sign because the Home Office has consistently refused to grant him British citizenship or a work permit.
“I am stateless. Stateless is a person who has no home. I’ve been here for
14 years. That should be enough to sanction this to be my home,” he said on his mobile phone from his room at Tinsley House, a detention centre near Gatwick Airport. “I’ve been kept in this detention centre for the last three weeks. I can’t even step outside. All I can see is bars. In my room, there is nowhere to see outside. It’s basically like a prison. I am here with lots of other people, people who are criminals, who have done something and served sentences and are awaiting deportation to their country. Criminals that need to be eradicated, just like me, that’s what they say.” Kelvin tells a harrowing story of growing up. “I’ve been on my own since I was eight. I was with an older man we called an ‘uncle’ and he told me I was going to London to see my father. But when I got here, I was left in a house and not treated pleasantly. “I was made to cook, clean, and wash. If I did anything wrong I’d get beaten and tortured. I ran away and went to the streets. A man pointed me to social services and I was with them from the age of 14 until 18.” Living in Hayes, west London, at the time, he took up boxing, which became an outlet, and his saving grace. He said: “I ended up winning championships and gold medals. I represented England, I even represented England against Nigeria.
“But during this whole time, I couldn’t work. Even when I wanted to get married, the Home Office got in the way of that. I fell in love with a girl and wanted to be with her for life.”
After winning the national amateur title in 2012, and titles in the next two years, an offer came from Warren. “But I couldn’t do it,” said Fawaz. “The Home Office said if I work, I will go to prison.”
Aamir Ali, his coach at Stonebridge Boxing Club, where he has been cleaning the gym and sleeping at night, explained: “He didn’t have role models at one point, and his friends were – you could say – gangsters, and he lived that life.
“But then he found boxing, he’s grown up, that past life has gone. He could be where Anthony Joshua and Luke Campbell are, but he’s seen his lottery ticket handed to him and then taken away.”
A Home Office spokesperson told The Sunday Telegraph that it had reviewed the applications of Fawaz several times and that there was no case for him to remain in the country under current rulings. It did not consider him to be “stateless” and that he had a string of criminal offences.”
Fawaz said: “They sabotaged my marriage and my Olympic dream. They haven’t allowed me to work since I was 18. I’m suffering from depression right now. They’ve ruined my life. I have nowhere to turn to.
“When I was fighting for England, I was proud. For them [the Home Office] to turn their back on me after literally bleeding for them in the ring, I feel abandoned all over again.”
Fawaz has appealed for bail and will seek a judicial review of his case.