I fear my son will die if he’s deported
Mum’s plea for autistic boy
A DESPERATE mum fears her autistic son will die if he is deported to Jamaica – where he has no relatives and knows no one.
Osime Brown, 22, has PTSD, anxiety, a heart problem and screams out in his sleep as he awaits a Home Office decision.
He faces deportation after serving a five-year sentence for robbery of a friend’s phone – though witnesses say he actually tried to stop the crime.
More than 50 MPs have voiced concerns about the deportation, and prominent figures – including the former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, poet Benjamin Zephaniah and Amnesty International UK director Kate Allen – have written to Home Secretary Priti Patel. A petition against the move has been signed by 345,000 people.
Osime is just out of hospital after collapsing with heart trouble. Mum Joan Martin, 54, of Dudley, West Mids, says: “I am very fearful my son will die.
“He has developmental delays and is extremely vulnerable. He would not survive in Jamaica with no one to look after him. He developed heart problems in jail and I worry his heart will stop again. I check every 15 minutes when he sleeps.
“Osime is traumatised. Often he can’t sleep and when he does he will be screaming, ‘No! No!’ He is terrified of being deported. I am concerned it’s damaging his mental health as well as physical. He turns the music up trying to drown out the noises in his head that haunt him. You can see how hard he is fighting.”
Osime has a learning age of six or seven and has no concept of where Jamaica is – he thinks it is only a bus ride away. Emma
Dalmayne, CEO of the Autistic Inclusive Meets group, works closely with Joan and Osime.
She said: “Osime was jailed under the controversial Joint Enterprise Law, used against many black youths to incarcerate them for crimes they themselves did not commit.
“Osime was present when a robbery took place and actively tried to stop it.” Nottingham
East Labour MP
Nadia Whittome, who campaigns against unjust deportation, said: “Osime came to this country when he was four, he grew up here, he is just as British as you or I.
“An autistic young black man is being failed by a whole myriad of institutions, from education to social care and then finally the criminal justice system and
the Home Office.” A Home Office spokesman said: “We only ever return those who we and, where applicable, the courts are satisfied do not need our protection and have no legal basis to remain in the UK.
“It would be inappropriate to comment further while legal proceedings are ongoing.”