Ghanaian repatriated in private jet

The Times reports in its inside pages that a Ghanaian woman, Patience Sapani-Awnobi, was flown back home by British immigration officers aboard a private jet after all commercial jet pilots refused to allow her on their aircraft.

The report says it cost the British tax payer about ?30,000 just to send Ms Sapani-Awnobi back to Ghana after all commercial pilots have refused to allow her on their aircrafts because she had become "hysterical."

According to the report, Ms Sapani-Awnobi was sent back home because she was unable to persuade officials to allow her to stay and look after her 17-year old son who is suffering from sickle-cell anaemia, although hospital authorities had recommended that she stayed to take of her him.

The home office had tried twice to put her on passenger flights but she became so hysterical at the prospect of leaving her son, Kwaku Acheampong, that pilots refused to take her. Ms Sapani- Awnobi, who arrived in Britain in 1992, was deported with another immigrant. There were two escorts on the plane.

The deportation of the two Ghanaians would have cost ?1,600 on a British Airway flight, but the home office defended its action in spending the ?30,000 saying the private jet was used as a "last resort," adding that Kwame had been invited to join her mother back home, but he turned it down.

"It doesn't happen often and it is the first time this year that we have had to do this. What would we do if every time we tried to put an immigrant on the plane they kicked up a fuss?

The Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group, a voluntary organisation, has condemned the action of the immigration authorities claiming that the separation of mother and son was a breach to the right of family life.

A spokesman for the group said: "She had been separated from her son who is going through diagnosis and could be very seriously ill. He is dependent and has just finished his 'A' Levels. For him to go back being so unwell would have been a mistake."