Only Fools and Horses star reveals heartbreak as Thai wife banned from the UK

[fvw53]

On 17-9-2017 at 9:19 AM, Artisi said:

Why, biological daughter is daughter- married or not married.

 

A Thai child can be adopted by him but if he was not married to the mother before birth then the child will not automatically obtain UK nationality : in many European laws about nationality of 1980ies the child could opt for nationality of father from the age of 16...I do not know if this has changed since the influx of the boat people the last 30 years.

[khwaibah]

The first two words of the title of this thread says it all. 

"Only Fools and Horses star reveals heartbreak as Thai wife banned from the UK

[sanemax]

45 minutes ago, SupermarineS6B said:

Should of said she was a returning ISIS terrorist fighter......... she'd of been fine, sometimes the pratts in Britain really are trying............... Sad case.....

Do stop these untrue comments .

People who joined ISIS and return to the UK and arrested , prosecuted and jailed

[StevieAus]

On 9/17/2017 at 1:30 PM, bristolgeoff said:

it is wrong when u see all the illegals in the uk getting everything.he wants his wife and child  with him legal.but he can not,that is wrong

My thoughts exactly his mistake was not to fly her in via Syria wearing a burka would have been welcomed with open arms

Its a very sad state affairs for what was once a great country and Australia is going down the same track 

[sanemax]

7 minutes ago, fvw53 said:

 

A Thai child can be adopted by him but if he was not married to the mother before birth then the child will not automatically obtain UK nationality 

That is incorrect .

A Child born to a British citizen is automatically British , doesnt matter whether the parents were married or not

[Thai Ron]

Predictable yakking about Muslims.

The UK rejects far, far more of these immigrants than it allows in so one has to assume the comments on it are based on good old-fashioned prejudice.

 

I'm surprised no one's questioned the idiocy of a man his age starting a family with a woman 25 years younger when he's barely got two pennies to rub together.

Now he's driving a cab at 61 to support a new kid - total mug.

The rules are the rules which he knew going in

[gestreo]

A note to isco  you said ( she'd get in alright if she was muslim ) I say - How do you know she isn't ??

[Toscano]

I have read that a way round the UK immigration rules is to go to the republic of Ireland .  Once established in Ireland you can get into the UK as an Irish resident .  I am told Germany is much easier to get into and then onward to the UK . 

[Thai Ron]

20 minutes ago, sanemax said:

He must be aware of the minimum income rules

Why didnt he spend the last few years working to meet the income requirements ?

If he really wanted his Wife and Daughter to join him in the UK , he would have knuckled down and done some work to meet the requirements .

    He is trying to portray himself as some kind of victim , whereas hes just a victim of the consequences of his own inaction 

   

[sawadee1947]

Maybe he should ask somebody before making plans....?  And if he is retired he might live in Thailand with a proof of 400.000. So what?

[sawadee1947]

On 9/17/2017 at 1:24 PM, brewsterbudgen said:

Surely if his daughter is British the income requirement is 18,600, irrespective of where she was born? 

Maybe he should have asked somebody before he made plans concerning his family? Anyway when he is retired he might live in Thailand if he can show 400.000 Baht.

And probably he voted for Mrs May?

[khunPer]

 

On 9/17/2017 at 7:58 AM, rooster59 said:

Patrick, now a cabbie, said they are barred under minimum income rules for non-European spouses – introduced by Prime Minister Theresa May during her time as Home Secretary.

Similar kind of rules in many European countries within Schengen, some even claim the wife shall be self-supporting from a highly paid job (408,000 DKK a year, equalling £48,000); and even she may have that, she can be considered under-qualified for the salary, and "deported" (a recent case of several from June 2017, Denmark, where a Thai mum to three Danish children could not obtain permission to stay in the country, even married to a Dane and having an annual salary of £49,600, article in Danish)...

Edited September 18, 2017 by khunPer

[dunroaming]

On ‎9‎/‎17‎/‎2017 at 7:05 AM, champers said:

A rule that is likely to be defunct post Brexit. I feel for him; I hope he can find a solution.

I would have thought that royalties from endless repeats of Only Fools and Horses would keep the money rolling in. Maybe not.

Doubt very much he would get royalties from OFAH.  Only the main stars are usually able to write that into their contracts.

 

There may be some things he can do to maybe help his case.  The first is to register his marriage in Thailand at the British Embassy because without that the marriage will not be recognised in the UK. He should also apply for a British passport for his daughter which would make her a British citizen. Once he has done that (and if necessary)  he could then put in an appeal to the European Court of Justice because in the EU countries that would give his daughter and her mother the right to live there.  Britain opted out of that but I know it is worth trying before Brexit and then it is too late. These are things we did (didn't need to appeal to the courts though) but that was pre-2010 when the rules were less stringent.

 

After Brexit it is likely that things will get much harder on all cases of immigration.  The big problem with British immigration as far as Thailand and the Philippines is that historically so many cases of Thai girls/women using vulnerable Brits to get into the country.  Much less so these days but still the mud sticks.

[rasg]

Whenever this kind of story turns up in a national newspaper they are usually wildly inaccurate and written to provoke outrage and the usual torch and pitchfork mob that seep out of the woodwork on here occasionally prove that it worked. The article says he is a taxi driver from Gravesend. It probably means he a mini cab driver on much less money than a licensed black taxi driver and he was being paid cash until he found out the real requirements to bring his wife and daughter here, where he had to bank his money and pay tax on it. If he is self employed, without an SA302 from the taxman his wife won’t be getting a settlement visa.

 

His kid is probably a UK citizen looking at it's age. Maybe it's not his child? The reason the requirement is listed at £22,400 and not £18,600. Or it's simply been reported incorrectly...

 

Even the article headline is probably wrong. She hasn’t been banned from the UK at all. How can you be banned when he doesn't have sufficient income to even apply for a visa yet?

Edited September 18, 2017 by rasg

[Thai Ron]

I wonder how much of the outrage about this story stems from the fact that so many of the people commenting could easily be in the same situation as this fool.

As in, old, having another crack at happiness with a much younger wife and a new child.

It's a monumentally stupid life choice when you read it on paper but so many people here are talking as if UK immigration have done wrong by him.

I don't think so - in fact, I think they've helped him dodge a bullet.

His wife ain't bad looking and I can easily see his wife getting offers from younger, richer and better looking blokes every time she stepped out of the house

Wouldn't be long before he was back in Pattaya drowning his sorrows with his last few quid before diving off a balcony.

 

[nickmondo]

On 9/17/2017 at 1:41 PM, FreddieRoyle said:

Indeed. Rules for ethnic Brits are not the same as for other ethnicities, even though we were born there. Sheer madness. Immigration officer was touchy (to put it mildly) when we commented as above on a prior visit to the UK.

blimey.  did you find an English immigration officer in the Uk customs system?  last time i went through at Heathrow there were more EU people than English working on OUR immigration!!!!  its all gone mad.  I left it all behind a couple of years ago.  They are welcome to it!!!

[Kevbo]

On 9/17/2017 at 8:27 AM, sanemax said:

I do believe that the rules are the same for everyone .

The rule was bought in to stop "mail order brides" and to stop Anglo Asians from going back home and marrying a village girl and bringing her to the UK and going on benefits

Mr Murray's wife is Asian, 

I think you are referring to Anglo Indians

 

   

[dunroaming]

2 minutes ago, Thai Ron said:

I wonder how much of the outrage about this story stems from the fact that so many of the people commenting could easily be in the same situation as this fool.

As in, old, having another crack at happiness with a much younger wife and a new child.

It's a monumentally stupid life choice when you read it on paper but so many people here are talking as if UK immigration have done wrong by him.

I don't think so - in fact, I think they've helped him dodge a bullet.

His wife ain't bad looking and I can easily see his wife getting offers from younger, richer and better looking blokes every time she stepped out of the house

Wouldn't be long before he was back in Pattaya drowning his sorrows with his last few quid before diving off a balcony.

 

As cynical as your post is, it does ring true in quite a few ways.  There are certainly many stories like that and I guess many people get sucked into the dream that turns into a nightmare.

[car720]

4 hours ago, tryasimight said:

That's just the application. I had to pay 50 dollars per A4 page for certified translations- maybe a thousand bucks all up. I used an immigration agent....another 3,000 dollars. That got us the prospective spouse visa. Then we got married and applied for the spouse visa and are now going for permanent residency for the bride.  Started all this in 2013. Waiting period for the permanent residency is estimated at 18 months. I reckon I have spent (including air fares for the wife to come to Oz on 3 monthly tourist visas) close to 25,000 aussie dollars. We'll go for citizenship after permanent residency, god knows how long that will take.

 

I'm glad I used an agent as a friend of mine has applied twice now for his missus to come to Oz and been knocked back twice. He is at the appeals stage now. He has been married 7 years with him working in Oz and the bride in BKK. Got to dot the i's and cross the t's when dealing with bureaucrats.

Amen.

[dunroaming]

8 minutes ago, nickmondo said:

blimey.  did you find an English immigration officer in the Uk customs system?  last time i went through at Heathrow there were more EU people than English working on OUR immigration!!!!  its all gone mad.  I left it all behind a couple of years ago.  They are welcome to it!!!

And when Brexit happens those EU "people" will disappear and then the border controls are in serious danger of collapsing.  Still you are well out of it as you say.

[car720]

4 hours ago, tryasimight said:

That's just the application. I had to pay 50 dollars per A4 page for certified translations- maybe a thousand bucks all up. I used an immigration agent....another 3,000 dollars. That got us the prospective spouse visa. Then we got married and applied for the spouse visa and are now going for permanent residency for the bride.  Started all this in 2013. Waiting period for the permanent residency is estimated at 18 months. I reckon I have spent (including air fares for the wife to come to Oz on 3 monthly tourist visas) close to 25,000 aussie dollars. We'll go for citizenship after permanent residency, god knows how long that will take.

 

I'm glad I used an agent as a friend of mine has applied twice now for his missus to come to Oz and been knocked back twice. He is at the appeals stage now. He has been married 7 years with him working in Oz and the bride in BKK. Got to dot the i's and cross the t's when dealing with bureaucrats.

Just curious but could you tell me the age difference?

[tryasimight]

4 minutes ago, car720 said:

Just curious but could you tell me the age difference?

9 years. I'm now 61 and she's 52.

My friend and his wife are both late 30's.

Edited September 18, 2017 by tryasimight

[B4Jazz]

This is a stupid rule, it does not take into debt or savings, is a person who earns £20k but has a £200k mortgage or pays rent of £800 per month and no savings better off than a person with £15k income, no mortgage, owns his own house, has 200,000k in savings?

[Thai Ron]

4 minutes ago, B4Jazz said:

This is a stupid rule, it does not take into debt or savings, is a person who earns £20k but has a £200k mortgage or pays rent of £800 per month and no savings better off than a person with £15k income, no mortgage, owns his own house, has 200,000k in savings?

First off, how's someone on 20K going to get a mortgage of 200k?

The guy's a self employed minicab driver with no accounts to show what he earns.

I would've declined his application in a nanosecond

[Sumarianson]

The rights of a human being are that they should not have to justify to anyone their reasons for their choice of spouse or where they come from in the world. 

If a person has the means to support their spouse and children then it is noone elses business. They should not have to justify or be degradingly  made to sign that they will be responsible for their costs. 

If the sponsor is a tax paying resident of that country then the same support that is afforded other family's should be made available to them. 

There are many citizens of many other countries living in the UK who do not have any relationship with a UK citizen or other resident. They do not have to prove an income or job placement on entering. Yet they have full access to tax money ( through the welfare system) afforded by residents whom are not allowed to take their ligimitate spouse' and children to the UK from another country.

This should not only be unlawful but does this seem fair?

[dunroaming]

1 minute ago, B4Jazz said:

This is a stupid rule, it does not take into debt or savings, is a person who earns £20k but has a £200k mortgage or pays rent of £800 per month and no savings better off than a person with £15k income, no mortgage, owns his own house, has 200,000k in savings?

Actually all of that is taken into consideration.  If you own your house then you have considerable assets and your income is pretty much irrelevant as long as you can support yourself and your family.  When we moved back to the UK  I was self employed (in that I had my own business) but it was not then a British registered business.  I had no property in the UK and I had to jump through quite a few hoops to show that I could support myself, wife and son.

[richard_smith237]

38 minutes ago, B4Jazz said:

This is a stupid rule, it does not take into debt or savings, is a person who earns £20k but has a £200k mortgage or pays rent of £800 per month and no savings better off than a person with £15k income, no mortgage, owns his own house, has 200,000k in savings?

 

"Patrick must prove he has an annual income of at least £22,400 or savings of at least £62,500"

 

 

 

 

[sanemax]

47 minutes ago, Kevbo said:

Mr Murray's wife is Asian, 

I think you are referring to Anglo Indians

 

   

I wasnt, no .

I was referring to British people with Asian ancestry , hence, Anlgo-Asians

[Kevbo]

8 minutes ago, sanemax said:

I wasnt, no .

I was referring to British people with Asian ancestry , hence, Anlgo-Asians

You mean with Indian ancestry

[barsie]

What I don't like about the system is lack of tiering.

 

You have to do the same ridiculous paperwork if you earn £100k a year as if you earn a barely sufficient £19k.

 

Would be a better system to be able to guarantor a bond of like £50k - so government got insurance and they aren't entitled to any benefits.

 

These rules must cost billions in genuine lost tourist revenue. Amazed many genuine tourists would do all the paperwork they ask for.