BANNED FROM BRITAIN AT AGE OF 81
Gretel denied re-entry after visiting Jamaica for funeral
A SICK gran who has lived in Britain for 59 years was blocked from returning after she went back to Jamaica for a funeral.
Gretel Gocan, 81, arrived with the Windrush generation and papers allowing her to stay.
But her passport was stolen and a new one did not contain the right document. She said of the UK: “They have turned their back on me.”
FOR 59 years, Gretel Gorcan lived in Britain believing she was free to come and go as she pleased after arriving with the Windrush Generation to start a new life here in 1960.
But the 81-year-old was stunned when she tried to return from a trip to her native Jamaica but was denied access – despite her paying taxes, raising a family and having a regular job in London. Sick Gretel was told she needed a visa to come back “home” – and now feels abandoned by the UK, who invited her over here in the first place to help boost our economy. She has been stuck in the Caribbean since 2009, cut off from her children and grandkids, broke and relying on relatives to put her up. And the sick pensioner is being hounded for £19,000 in UK benefits officials claim she must pay back. As the scandal over the pulping of landing cards from the Windrush immigrants grows, Gretel is human proof of the suffering the situation is causing.
She said: “From the life, I once had surrounded by my children in London to having been made homeless in Jamaica has broken my heart. I travelled to Britain to help out on the promise of a new life but now they have turned their back on me. My children are still in London but I am left here. It is not how I wanted to live my final years. I miss my family so much. I want to return to my home in the UK but can’t.”
When Gretel arrived at Tilbury Docks in East London, aged 24, all those years ago, she had a Jamaican passport with a stamp inside giving her indefinite leave to remain.
But that document was stolen in a 2006 burglary at her house in Lambeth. She applied for a new one and her daughter Pauline Blackwood immediately filed a police report. The authorities told Gretel she would not be given a UK passport and if she left Britain she would need to apply for a visa on her new Jamaican passport. Her worst fears were confirmed when she went to the Caribbean for her sister’s funeral in 2010 and to try to reconnect with other family members. As she tried to board the flight back to Britain, she was told her passport did not contain the correct documentation and she was refused the right to travel. Pauline, 56, said: “To say she was heartbroken, would be an understatement. My mum had devoted most of her life to the UK and now they were saying she was no longer welcome. She was completely lost.” She has poor chronic health conditions one of which is diabetes. And Gretel has had no means to pay for her medication, and has fallen into two diabetic comas.
She has still been receiving benefits from the UK which Pauline has been sending to her in Jamaica to live on. But officials are demanding she repays £19,000 in social security payments they claim she was never entitled to.
Pauline added: “Mum is penniless. She has nothing except for the money I send over. What do they want her to do? Be homeless again?
“She has been left with absolutely nothing by authorities when her entire life is in the UK.
“My mum has six children in the UK and she has grandchildren and some of them she hasn’t seen or even held.
“Her family is here and it is for her to make that choice whether she chooses to stay in Jamaica or come back to the UK, but that is not an option for her, she is forced to stay in Jamaica.
“My main fear is we’re going to lose our mum. She has no money, all her pension’s been stopped and her medication too, that’s all been denied to her.”
Gretel’s family have applied for a visa for