The Home Office has denied a great-grandfather from Lancashire the chance of meeting his five-month-old British great-grandson, who lives abroad.
William Cross was born in Thailand on 30 April to parents Matthew Cross, 31, who is from Burnley in Lancashire, and Khin Thant Zin, known as Jue Jue, also 31, a refugee who fled persecution in Myanmar to Thailand.
The family live on the island of Koh Tao, famous for its diving schools and a centre for turtle conservation. It is a popular tourism spot and Cross, a mechanical engineer, opened a steakhouse restaurant there 15 months ago. He met Zin on the island and the couple are now engaged. She works in the restaurant managing social media and human resources.
Cross’s parents have visited the family in Thailand and have met their grandson. But William’s great-grandfather George Kerr, 74, who lives in Clayton-le-Moors in Lancashire, has multiple health problems and so is unable to fly out to Thailand to meet the baby. Instead, a large family gathering was planned in Burnley for Christmas.
Cross said: “My grandfather suffers from ill health and sadly he is unable to travel. He and I have been extremely close all my life and I’m desperate for him to meet his grandchild.”
The family have just signed a lease on a new home and have bought some land on the island for later development.
They assumed that organising a short trip to the UK for a family Christmas would be straightforward. But the Home Office refused Zin’s visitor visa application, which means the family will be unable to travel.
Officials said they were not satisfied she was a “genuine visitor”, and that there was no evidence Zin would return to Thailand because she had not shown evidence of significant family ties there, and she was unable to show sufficient evidence of her income.
“Jue Jue has never had a bank account,” Cross said. “Her brother and sister both live on Koh Tao and her mum is planning to move here when her younger sister has finished school in Myanmar.”
The visitor visa application process is expensive and cumbersome. “They required documentation from my family to be financial guarantors while we’re in the UK. Passport photos of my grandfather, my mum and dad and me, a typed letter from each of us confirming our commitment to sponsorship, a formal letter of invitation from my parents saying they would be comfortable with my partner being in my home,” Cross said.
“We had to travel to Phuket, a journey of two nights and three days from Koh Tao on a ferry and buses, which cost us £400, to complete biometric screening required for the visitor visa application.”
There is no right of appeal against this visa refusal so the couple are preparing a new application, although the Home Office refusal letter warns that future applications are likely to be refused “unless the circumstances of your application change”.
They also need to buy and provide evidence of return flight tickets even though they don’t know whether the new visa application will be granted. They have to make the long journey from the island on ferry and buses a second time to repeat the biometrics.
“By the time we send our next application, the whole thing will have cost us £3,000 with no guarantee of it being accepted,” Cross said.
The family are still hoping that baby William will be able to meet his great-grandfather at Christmas. Temperatures on the island rarely fall below 25C, so back in Burnley his relatives have bought warm baby clothes in the hope he will get a chance to wear them.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “We do not routinely comment on individual cases. All visa applications are carefully considered on their individual merits, in line with the immigration rules and based on the information and evidence provided by the applicant.”
