AN OLYMPIC boxer from Nigeria who married a British woman after travelling to London for the 2012 games has launched a legal bid to stay in the country after she fell pregnant.
Asylum seeker Victor Daodu has been locked up by immigration police twice despite the fact that his wife Robyn is seven months pregnant.
The 25-year-old, who was part of the Nigerian boxing team who competed in the last Olympic Games, was dragged off to an immigration detention centre in Scotland without warning and threatened with deportation to Lagos.
When the couple complained, Home Office officials even told heavily pregnant Robyn, 27, that she should go and live with her new husband in Nigeria.
She said: “I feel like they are questioning our relationship. It’s my first baby – you are supposed to enjoy pregnancy and enjoy marriage, but so far it has been awful.
“We wouldn’t have got married if there was a chance this could happen.”
A number of African athletes vanished from the Olympic Village during the London games, with many later claiming asylum.
They included two Cameroonian boxers who famously fled before taking part in their bouts, before they were eventually tracked down by the Home Office and granted asylum.
In contrast Victor and Robyn feel they have been victims of trying to do things above board.
The couple met through the Plenty of Fish dating website in November 2012, whilst Victor was waiting to hear whether he would be allowed to join the British Army.
They had already moved in together when his application was refused, after the Government tightened up residency rules for Commonwealth citizens looking to join the armed forces.
However, with the help of his wife-to-be, Victor applied for asylum on he grounds that he would be persecuted in Nigeria if it was discovered that he had tried to join the British Army.
The couple got engaged on New Year’s Day 2014, with his asylum claim still pending.
After receiving legal advice and being interviewed by a registrar in their hometown of Manchester, they went ahead and got married in April last year.
However, in July 2014 Victor’s asylum claim was refused, and he has subsequently lost several appeals.
The couple say they have spent £4,000 on legal fees fighting to keep the Olympic boxer in the UK, which they have borrowed from Robyn’s 84-year-old grandmother.
However, in a letter to the couple’s solicitor officials at the Home Office insisted Robyn should go and live in Nigeria with her new husband despite being heavily pregnant.
It said: “Whilst it is acknowledged that Robyn Daodu is pregnant this does not constitute an insurmountable obstacle to family life continuing in your client’s country of origin.
“It is considered that the standard of living conditions, employment and education prospects available to your client and his family in Nigeria is something that could reasonably be expected to be overcome, even with a degree of hardship for one or more of the family members concerned.”
Robyn’s outraged parents, both psychiatric nurses, have now set up a petition in a bid to overturn the Government’s decision.
In a letter to the Home Office, they wrote: “When we first met Victor we were both sceptical about his intentions and questioned him relentlessly about who he was and what he was all about.
“We were able to use our experience as psychiatric nurses to ascertain whether or not Victor was genuine and whether or not what he was telling us was the truth.
“Since that time we can both honestly say that Victor is a genuinely humble man who is deeply religious and also deeply loves our daughter Robyn.”
A spokesman for the Home Office said it did not routinely comment on individual cases.
Author: Chief Editor
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