Dean Ablakwa, 34, currently stateless in Accra despite having British birth certificate and studying and working in UK for more than a decade, raising fresh questions about government’s treatment of Commonwealth nationals in wake of Windrush scandal
Despite having British birth certificate, Studying, working in UK for more than a decade With No Criminal Record, NHS Nurse Deported to Ghana.
According to Independent UKDean Ablakwa, 34, is currently stateless and unable to work in the Ghanaian capital Accra after the British government removed him in June 2017, despite the fact that he had previously worked and paid taxes in the UK for more than a decade.
With no relatives in the city, he has been sleeping on the friend of a friend’s sofa for the past year and a half and is relying on donations from family in the UK.
In 2012, the Enfield resident got a job as a trainee socio-therapist with the NHS in Homerton. But almost a year into the job, he was accused of helping a convicted murderer escape from a secure unit in the facility – a crime for which, after nine months in prison on remand, he was found not guilty.
Mr Ablakwa was released into homelessness because his flat had been repossessed while he was in jail, and he wasn’t given his NHS job back, for reasons he said were never made clear to him. He describes his imprisonment as the moment his human rights started to be “stripped away”.
Mr Ablakwa managed to borrow someone’s phone and call friends in the UK who put him in touch with people in the city who he has been staying with since. But with no Ghanaian ID, he has been unable to work or get a bank account and is relying on sporadic donations from friends and family in Britain.
The 34-year-old has no funds to pay for legal representation. His previous solicitor Naga Kandiah, of MTC Solicitors, said the main obstacle in his case was the fact that he couldn’t obtain his parents’ records, and accused the Home Office of “ignoring” non-Caribbean Windrush cases.
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