THE MOTHER of a 22-year-old autistic man is continuing her fight to halt his deportation following a successful campaign to allow him to come home to Dudley instead of being transferred to an immigration removal centre on his release from prison in October.

Osime Brown has faced deportation to Jamaica since he was convicted of taking part in a mobile phone theft and sentenced to five months in prison in 2018. Both Brown, his supporters and a witness to the crime, say he is innocent.

Brown went into care aged 16 and struggles to comprehend the prospect of being removed from the UK and taken to a country he left when he was just four years old – and has not returned to since.

“He’s not in the right frame of mind to analyse [it] and I don’t think he will ever, because if he believes he can take a bus from Jamaica to get here, that shows you the vulnerability of my son,” his mother, Joan Martin, said.

A letter from the Home Office disputed that Brown would face severe difficulties settling in Jamaica, citing: “You are familiar with the culture of Jamaica as you were raised by your mother/relatives in Jamaica for the first four years of your life,” The Independent reported.

“I always say it, he would die. He could not cope in Jamaican culture because, number one, he didn’t grow up in Jamaica”

Martin describes the letter’s claims as “absurd”. “There’s no way a four-year-old can form a relationship and go back and pick up from where he started, it’s all changed. I came here when I was a woman in my 30s and I went back to Jamaica and I passed where I used to live and didn’t know.”

She added: “Seventeen years of his life he’s not a British citizen and four years of his life he’s Jamaican – how does that equate, how?” For Brown, whose autism means he requires routine, the prospect of adjusting to a new life in a country he doesn’t know presents additional challenges because he has no support network in Jamaica.

Difficulties

Martin isn’t just concerned her son would experience difficulties adjusting to a new life in the Caribbean country, she fears his life would be over.

“I always say it, he would die. He could not cope in Jamaican culture because, number one, he didn’t grow up in Jamaica … and with his vulnerabilities, he could not cope there,” she said.

Brown’s health problems have reportedly increased during his time in prison. He now has problems with his heart and he’s suffering from PTSD, Martin added.

While in jail, Brown’s mental health suffered and he self-harmed, which left him with multiple physical scars.

“They have destroyed my baby,” Martin said.

Martin, a qualified mental health nurse, feels Brown has been let down by the institutions, such as the care system, that were meant to help him, and she believes his race has played a pivotal role in how he has been treated.

She said: “I would be ignorant and be blind to the fact if I say that race didn’t play a role in Osime’s situation. “They treat him like an outcast, he was treated like hanging fruits and not like a human being and it’s all done because he’s black.”

Martin added that she’s learned as a black woman with an autistic child who falls “into the iron grip of those institutions” it can be a “life sentence of grief, rejection and pain”.

While she doesn’t feel Brown has received the support he needs from the state, Martin is grateful for those who have rallied around her son, her and her family. Members of the public have signed petitions and protested, and MPs including Bell Ribeiro-Addy and Nadia Whittome have publicly criticised the government’s handling of Brown’s case and raised the issue of how neurodivergent individuals are treated by the criminal justice system in parliament.

Without the support from the public and public figures, Martin said she would have already been “crushed by the weight of indifference of the system”.

Martin is determined to stop Brown from being another black man deported to a country that he has almost no knowledge of, a process that she compares to a conveyor belt.

And she’s not just calling for an intervention in Brown’s case but for a review of how others in similar situations to him are treated. “I will not stop fighting, and this fight is not only for Osime it’s for other children and young people that are suffering under the cosh of this environment,” Martin said.

Inquiry

“And I also need a public inquiry. I’m pushing for that and I won’t stop until they do a public inquiry into not only Osime’s case but in all other cases – whether in care or not in care – that find themselves into the justice system because they don’t help them.”

The family has started a fresh appeal against Brown’s deportation. Lawyers are gathering evidence, including documentation relating to his health conditions, to support the argument that he should be allowed to remain in the UK.

A Home Office spokesperson 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.”

While they await a court date, Martin is calling on the black community to join her fight. She said: “We need them to rally behind us, push with us. If we get all our community to come together, we can win this because this is an injustice.”