United Reformed Church (URC) members and a URC minister is helping a man whose wife died soon after the Home Office tried to deport them.

Fusi Motsamai, and his wife Nancy, both from South Africa, much-loved members of the Woking URC community, had lived and worked in the UK for more than a decade when they ran into difficulties trying to renew their visas.

They were ordered to report to a Home Office centre in Hounslow and on 7 March 2018 were informed they would be forcibly removed that day.

During the removal attempt Nancy fell ill and Home Office officials accused her of faking illness to avoid being put on the plane. She died five days later as a result of undiagnosed ovarian cancer, deep-vein thrombosis and a pulmonary embolism.

Fusi was told in October 2018 that officials still intended to progress with deporting him, and at a recent immigration appeal hearing at Harmondsworth, near Heathrow Airport, the Revd Lucy Brierley, Minister for Woking URC, and 15 members of the church attended in a show of support.

Mrs Brierley also gave evidence, read what she had to say in The Guardian …