The Deported - Citizenship by Criteria: The Chemsex Trilogy, #4

Dedication

For Petter Allott 1970 - 2018

One who paid the ultimate price for Chemsex.

Never far from my thoughts

Preface

I’d made a stupid mistake - well in fact a series of them really! Suffering from Depression, anxiety, the dissolution of my relationship, and under enormous pressure in my business, I had allowed myself to become entangled in a culture of recreational drugs, which I guess I’d been self medicating, thinking they were allowing me to stay sane and reduce stress, but they were in fact pulling me further and further downwards into an endless spiral of euphoric highs and devastating lows, where what had seemed bizarre when sober, soon became absolutely normal, so distorted had my judgement become. This is a phenomenon which has since become known as ‘Chemsex’ which is reaching epidemic proportions in Britain, but also gaining momentum in Ireland, Germany France, Spain, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, The USA and Canada, and is likely to spread further.

What followed next was further decline in the business, so when over a couple of pipes of Crystal Meth, a friend suggested I start selling it to help me out of a short term financial hole, it seemed the most natural solution in the world, in fact we joked that i should write a ‘secret life of a drug dealer’ story on my experiences and adventures. At the time, most drug dealers were selling inferior product, at over inflated prices, and under weight, so we took the idea one step further and decided I should also prove that using a sound honest business model could still generate significant profit. Initially I had intended only on selling to 10 or so of my friends, however word of mouth spread and before long I had a client list of over 3000, and as far afield as Belgium and France. This had only ever been intended as a short term fix, however whenever I made mention of giving up, I faced opposition from both my clients and suppliers. Arrested in a comedy of errors in my Flat, when the police had been called because of a noise issue, I was charged with ‘possession with intent to supply, class A drugs’ and released on bail, on the condition that I was prohibited from leaving England and Wales, Placed on a curfew from 10pm until 4am each night with a tag on my ankle, and forced to surrender my passport. this meant that my work as a freelance travel journalist, which prior to all this had been my main source of income, was impossible to continue, and I had no other option but to  continue dealing to service my commitments, and in fact to survive.

This continued on through the following year, and I became further depressed, using more and more drugs, until finally, and almost with a sense of relief, I was arrested again and this time denied bail. Having navigated my way through a farcical British legal system, where the prosecution and even the defence Lawyers will say whatever they like for the result they want, often with no regard for the truth whatsoever, I was talked into an American style plea bargain with the Crown Prosecutor, whereby they would lower the severity of the charges if I would plead guilty, and another arrangement with the Police whereby I was promised a reduced sentence if I cooperated with them and gave names of suppliers. I was sentenced to five years prison instead of the two years suspended sentence I’d been promised, and then found I also had an immigration problem to worry about, which no one had mentioned throughout the entire procedure. The nightmare continued  even after I thought there could be no more surprises.

At the same time, The country had just voted in a referendum to leave the European Union; which the public had been told would put an end to immigration problems, and guarantee jobs, social welfare and prosperity to all. Theresa May had  then been sworn in as Prime Minister in Britain. Formerly the Home Office secretary, she had been responsible for immigration law, and had vowed to reduce net migration down to the 10s of thousands, something she had failed to achieve in her seven years tenure. Over the past 18 months since her elevation to Prime Minister, story after story has come out about inhumane treatment of foreign nationals, wrongful deportation, aggressive bullying and Gulag style midnight arrests, in her determination to enforce her ‘Hostile Environment Policy’ and these are only the tip of the iceberg.

This book is a documentation of my first hand experiences in dealing with the British Home office and the UKBA in my deportation process, stories of people I encountered whilst both in prison and in detention centres awaiting deportation, and an insight into some of the other cases at the time which make a mockery of the democratic process, and show the British Government under this woman as bordering on a dictatorship, where she will say and do whatever it takes to get what she wants.

Chapter 1. Illegal Alien

Alone. Worried. Scared in fact! I was locked up in the bowels of the Holborn Police station in central London, awaiting advice from a duty Solicitor, and unsure what would happen to me next. I knew I was in trouble, I’d been caught red-handed with a significant quantity of drugs in my flat, and although I knew I would not come out of this unscathed, no one could tell me what would happen to me. Suddenly the door clanged open and a couple of uniformed fellows stood framed in the door of my cell.

‘Mr Yorke?’ Who were these two? and what the hell did they want? didn’t they know I had enough on my plate without an unnecessary social visit?

‘Yes?’ I answered tentatively

‘So you’re an illegal alien!’ they replied. What the hell were they talking about? It took a couple of moments for this to sink in. In the ten years in which I’d been living in the UK, I’ been extremely careful to keep my immigration status up to date. I suddenly realised that these two were from the UK border authority, and they were intimating that I was in the country illegally. The police had seized my passport in the raid on the flat, so I guessed they had run a check on it, and with horror I realised that they may technically have a point, albeit not of my making.

When I first arrived in the UK this time, in 2006 I was aware that I was eligible for an ancestry visa as my grandfather had been born in England. I had made inquiries about obtaining what was called ‘Permanent leave to remain’ giving me full work, residence and pension rights - such as it was. At the time the Home Office had wanted to take my passport for up to ten weeks, and for me this was impossible. Working as a freelance travel journalist for a number of publications from abroad, I needed my passport to visit the overseas destinations on which I was writing, and I certainly could not be without a passport for that length of time, so I had shelved the idea, and resolved to revisit it when I was more financially secure, and could afford to take the time off whilst it was processed. Time had passed and I had promptly forgotten all about it, and anyway, I would travel abroad, and return at least once a month, and because of my Swedish residence, I would show my IdKort and immigration at the airport would wave me through each time with a 6 month visitors visa. Technically because I didn’t write for any UK publications, I was not working in the UK and therefore no work visa requirements were broken. My clients paid my income into my offshore account, so I wasn’t even earning money in the UK. Because I had been travelling so much at the time, I never had to worry about overstaying my visitors visa, because I was never in the country for more than six months at a time, and anyway, the British immigration system was so antiquated and outdated that they had no way of recording when one left the country, only when one entered, so even if I had overstayed, I could simply leave and come back in, gaining a new six month visa. All of this had been going swimmingly, for nigh on nine years, however last year I had lost my passport on the way to having it renewed, and as this had not been the first time it had been lost or stolen, the New Zealand High commission had slapped me on the wrist and told me I could only have a one year replacement, and in future If I lost it again, it would not be renewed until exhaustive measures had been taken to retrieve it. At the time, this had been but a mild inconvenience, and of course an irritating waste of money as I would be forced to pay the full fee once again to replace it the next time.

This had all taken place in June 2014, before my descent into self destruction, which began in October of the same year. Early in the new year, I had travelled to Ireland to write a story on County Wexford, for a well know Australian travel magazine, and owing to the need for a car whilst there, I had elected to drive to Fishguard in Wales and put the car on the ferry to Roslare. After an entertaining 10 days I’d returned via the same route, however when I arrived back in Wales, at 10am, there had been no Border Authority in attendance, so I had driven off the ferry and straight onto the highway, meaning I hadn’t actually had my passport stamped, and therefore didn’t have a visitors visa for the following six months. At the time I’d made a joke about it to my travelling companion, however I had failed to see the significance of it, and with no way of foreseeing the future, had no idea that six months later I would be in this position.

Of course now with these two clowns from the UKBA authority making noises, I said nothing of all this, figuring there would be time for all that later, if in fact anything more were to be done about it. After a couple of questions, they departed, and I went back to the arduous task of trying to figure out how I was going to extricate myself from the mess I had got myself into legally, without a second thought for them and their ridiculous accusations.

Two days later, after a rather short court hearing I was released on Bail, and the case was transferred to the Crown court at a later date. This of course was the perfect opportunity to give up drugs, dealing and everything associated with them,  and now having sobered up for three days, I had realised how stupid I’d been and wished I had another option, however the terms of my bail meant that I was tagged and tied to a curfew from 10pm until 4am every day, required to report to the police station every day between the hours of 10am and 12noon, forbidden from leaving the country and my passport had been seized. This meant essentially my hands were tied and I was stuck in Britain, unable to go back to travel writing, because of my inability to travel, and with no visa, I had no legal possibility of working in anything other than what I’d been doing for the past six months - dealing drugs!

Pretty soon all of this faded back into obscurity, as I resumed where I had left off, regaining most of my clients and before long it was business as usual, as it was the only way I had of supporting myself. This carried on for a further six months with no mention at any of my numerous court appearances of any problems with immigration. At one time I had spoken to my lawyer about it, but he had advised he had no knowledge of immigration issues, and suggested I engage an immigration lawyer. This of course was also pushed to the back of my mind as I swiftly went back to work, and prepared myself another slam of Meth.

When I was first arrested I had spoken to one of my suppliers about the situation, and he had advised that I should get myself a fake passport and leave the country. He knew of someone who could organise it for around £600. A Lawyer friend, and a major client of mine had also advised something similar, although his idea had been to front up to the New Zealand High Commission and just apply for a replacement passport. His thinking was that the British Government were so inefficient that they would not have advised the Embassy, and that the Embassy certainly wouldn’t check with the Home Office or the Justice Department. This was shocking to me - My life was here, I owned an apartment in London, and all my friends were here. where would I go? I hadn’t lived in New Zealand for over 30 years, and Australia didn’t hold much attraction. i had already spent 15 years of my life there, and in a sense, was done with it. And anyway, prior to this little hiccup I had been a totally law abiding citizen, The worst offence I had ever committed had been the odd speeding fine, so I had faith in the system, that this would be taken into account during the trial, and I would be shown leniency.

Eventually in February of 2016, I was arrested again, this time on the immigration charges, although the police used this as an excuse to also raid my flat, where they found another large quantity of drugs. By this time i’d become so despondent; downcast and depressed, that I had made little attempt at hiding them, had grown tired of the pressures placed on me by clients, and had been beaten and raped at knifepoint by suppliers. I had twice contemplated suicide, so in a sense it was almost a relief to have been caught and arrested, and this time I knew I was not going to get bail, as I had re-offended in the same crime whilst out on bail the last time. After another night in the Holborn Police lockup, I was escorted to Highbury Corner Magistrates Court where again my case was bound over to the Blackfriars Crown Court, and this time I was remanded without bail and sent directly to Pentonville Prison to await my fate. After a month where I had repeatedly asked to see someone regarding my immigration status, and repeatedly been denied, even though they had me listed as a foreign national, and had placed a block on visitors, paying me instead, £2.50 per week which was meant to facilitate phone calls to my family and friends abroad, of which I had no interest in whatsoever, having lived in Britain for the past 10 years. I finally had access to a lawyer, who advised the I was to appear in the Crown Court the following Friday, and from there I would be transferred to HMP Thameside, a new and modern establishment in the far east of London.

Once at Thameside, the entire registration process that I had been through in Pentonville was repeated, and when they processed my ID card, the officer noticed that I had been flagged with an immigration status, and when I told him where I was from, he laughed. This I took as a positive sign, but it turned out that the only reason for mirth was that almost all the other foreign nationals in the prison were either Polish or Albanian, or of Northern African descent, and to his knowledge they had never had a New Zealander here with an immigration status. After a couple of days, I was advised that there was another inmate who had been given the title of foreign nationals rep on the wing, who would advise me what to do, but when I approached him, he spoke barely any English and had no idea what I was talking about. On inquiry to the officers on the wing, they had no idea either, however I did spy a notice in the library, advertising that I could make an appointment through the Chaplain for a meeting with the UKBA rep, who visited every second Tuesday. This was at least a step in the right direction and I waited patiently for the next 10 days until my time was up. In the end it was less than helpful as well. My name was called and a wiry little black woman with a shock of dreadlocks treated me in the public area of the wing. To say her attitude was hostile, would be a gross understatement. She had no knowledge of my case, and when I explained to her that I didn’t know what my immigration issues were, and needed to know so I could fix them, she basically implied I was wasting her time, and that she had more important cases to deal with. By now all avenues had been exhausted, and short of engaging an immigration lawyer, I had no idea where to turn. My Lawyer had referred me to one that they had dealt with in the past, but they would give me no advice on the phone, and insisted on an upfront payment of €500 before they would agree to talk about anything. I simply didn’t have access to this money. My cards had all been confiscated when I entered prison, and had been stored as valuables with all my other personal property. I had a personal account with some funds in it, and the prison service as it was, the only way I had to access this was essentially to do something illegal, in providing my account details, passwords and logins to a friend who was able to transfer funds to his account and then send money in to me for my weekly survival, and had rapidly been depleted in the purchase of cigarettes as currency, as well as personal hygiene items and other essential food items from the canteen. I had thought that the £15,000 I had in a term deposit account had been linked to my normal everyday banking account, but apparently not, and I didn’t have access to the passwords to be able to access it at all either. It seemed everywhere I turned, I hit a barrier.

My cellmate had engaged a London Lawyer for his case, and he happened to notice on their business card that they also had an immigration department, so in desperation I phoned them and spoke to the immigration lawyer, who only muttered a few vagaries and told me they could do nothing my trial was over and I was either due for release, or was sentenced, as the outcome would influence my status. I had no idea what this meant, but decided that as I was back in court for another hearing in a month, I would wait until after that.

In the meantime, Friends had been on the internet, and looked up all the immigration criteria they could find, and it all seemed fairly straight forward, so I wondered why this issue was causing me such grief. I owned property worth a considerable amount of money in central London, strong ties to the community, as I had regularly served on the board of charities, and been involved in countless fundraising activities for community based causes, I had scores of people who counted me as their friend, another was of course still my ancestry entitlement, which surely should still carry some weight? They did however seem to think that marrying a British citizen would seal the deal, and to the end there were a couple of friends who were more than willing to oblige, however I had seen these deals go sour before, so if I was going to go down that route, I wanted to incentivise it, to make sure I wasn’t held to ransom at some point down the track. My friend Rob had agreed to be my husband, so I wrote him a long letter detailing the rather generous business arrangement, detailing how much I was prepared to pay him, at each stage of the proceedings, however in my rush to get it finalised I had forgotten to get his mailing address, so ended up having to send it care of another mutual friend, Tom, and asking him to forward it on. Next minute there was apparently a change of heart by Rob, even though I hadn’t been able to contact him directly by phone, and Tom had booked a visit to discuss it with me. It then transpired that he had opened the letter and read it, and now wanted the same deal for himself. To me this was fine, as he’d been super supportive throughout the previous three months of my incarceration, I trusted him, and in some ways I rationalised that this was a better option, as I’d had a secret crush on Rob for years, and was worried that a business agreement may be clouded by my personal feelings, and leave me open to manipulation and extortion. Now looking back this seemed extremely calculating and untrusting, but I had seen these situations happen countless times with friends who had entered similar arrangements, and then fallen at the final hurdle because of extra financial demands placed on them in a form of blackmail. Tom and I talked at length about how this would play out, and he had even gone so far as to speak to his parents, who evidently supported the decision, so it all looked quite secure.

Meanwhile, my Lawyer had been back in touch regarding my hearing at the beginning of April. She advised that because I had re-offended, I was looking at a sizeable prison sentence, but that if I pleaded guilty, the prosecution would agree to lesser charges, and with the incentive of a third off my sentence for pleading guilty at the first available opportunity, I should get away with a two year suspended sentence. Until now I had thought that throughout the trial if all the facts were laid bare, I should be able to defend it, and My previous Barrister had talked about proving duress, or pressure from my suppliers to continue dealing, which had largely been the case in terms of violence they had inflicted on me, and threats made over the welfare of my friends. A guilty plea had never entered my head until now, but the Lawyer insisted, with the weight of evidence against me, it was my best option. I spent the weekend before the trial going over and over the figures, reworking everything, and the other factor was that to date there had been no publicity whatsoever, and this would probably continue if I were to enter a guilty plea, meaning I would salvage what little dignity I had left, and be able to re-enter society largely unscathed. Eventually on the morning of the hearing I had still not made up my mind, and in my pre-hearing meeting with the Barrister, a message was sent to my lawyer requesting a meeting with me on my own, with the policeman who was handling my case. The deal he offered was that apparently he had discretion with the judge, and that If I cooperated with them, and gave names and addresses of my main suppliers, and they effected an arrest, I would be eligible for up to 60% reduction on whatever sentence I would finally be handed, on condition of pleading guilty today, and waiting a further month for sentencing. This suddenly made the options far clearer, and the hearing far faster! Within five minutes I was in and out, having plead guilty, before being returned to HMP Thameside to wait out the next month before I would learn my fate.

Chapter 2. Game Changer

Three weeks later the Fat policeman who had offered the deal, contacted my Lawyer to say they had made a significant arrest of over £250,000 worth of Crystal Meth, and that he felt sure I would get my maximum allowance. This of course was the cause of sheer elation on my part, and would most certainly mean I would avoid any further prison time, so I allowed myself the luxury of starting to plan my wedding. with a little luck I could be out of here within a week!

The hearing loomed and I felt quite confident of the outcome. Eventually the day arrived and I was ferried back down to Blackfriars for sentencing, still supremely confident of the outcome, only to be dealt a savage blow. Five years! The prosecution had added all the charges from the first arrest to the second, although it made no difference really, as the charges were read out and I was advised I would serve them all concurrently, with five years for each offence. I thought I had heard the judge wrongly. Perhaps he was taking about the original sentence before the discounts were added? Perhaps the fat policeman had still to deliver his account to the judge, but no; there he was in the gallery smirking away, looking very pleased with himself. Everything that had been promised by the Crown Prosecution and the Police had been an absolute litany of lies! Suddenly I understood why those friends all those months ago had advised me to leave the country! I would have been far better off even with all the inconveniences, than I was now! When I thought of five years rotting behind bars I felt sick to the stomach. Even the warden as she took me downstairs to the holding cells couldn’t believe my term.

My Barrister arranged a meeting and appeared as shocked as I was - small consolation! He wasn’t the one staring five years in the face. He advised me to get my immigration status sorted out as soon as possible as otherwise that too would come back to bite me further down the line. He did however inform me that with good behaviour I would only in fact serve half the term, with the