Chesterfield man was refused entry back to UK after visiting dying mum in Jamaica

Junior Green was born in Jamaica in 1956 and came over to the UK with his mum when he was just 15 months old in 1958, as did many other children from Caribbean countries, known as the Windrush generation.

Mr Green has lived and worked in the UK all his life – but when he travelled to Jamaica to visit his mum last March, he was not allowed on the return flight back to the UK and, as a result, missed his mum’s funeral.

“If I did not go I would probably not see her alive again,” Mr Green told BBC’s Newsnight. “I had all the evidence that I lived in the country so I thought it would be no problem.”

Describing how he felt when he was not allowed back in the UK, he said: “I was upset. I was virtually in tears. If it was not for my sister consoling me I do not know what would have happened. I could not understand why.”

The problems have arisen for the Windrush generation due to a lack of official paperwork.

The Home Office did not keep a record of those granted permission to stay and, in 2010, it destroyed landing cards belonging to Windrush migrants. In 2009, when Mr Green tried to get his passport updated with the correct visa information, the Home Office asked him to prove that he had lived in the country for each of the last 10 years.

His application was rejected twice.

After visiting his mum in Jamaica in March last year, he was not allowed on the return flight in June.

Mr Green finally returned home last September – but in that time his mum had been repatriated back to the UK and he missed her funeral.

Chesterfield MP Toby Perkins, who helped with Mr Green’s return, said: “It was a inhumane situation.”

Due to the emotional stress it caused, Mr Green had to quit his job.

Prime Minister Theresa May has apologised and the Government has set up a ‘task force’ to deal with the Windrush cases.