A 92-year-old widow battling to stay in the legal care of her only daughter in Britain has won a “stay of execution” after the Home Office cancelled a planned deportation following a massive public outcry.

Myrtle Cothill has heart problems, is losing her eyesight and cannot walk unaided, and is currently looked after by her only daughter, Mary Wills, in Poole, Dorset.

Immigration enforcement officials had booked Cothill on a Virgin flight to Johannesburg on Tuesday night but rang her lawyers late on Friday to say her booking had been cancelled. It is understood the Home Office has postponed the deportation to give the family more time to prove their claims that Cothill’s poor health means she is unfit to travel and care for herself in South Africa.

The decision gives the family “breathing space”, said their barrister, Jan Doerfel.



“The message from the Home Office means that Myrtle will no longer be required to report to an immigration officer at Heathrow airport. This gives us more time to submit fresh evidence for the Home Office to reconsider their initial refusal decision,” he said.

“One could call this a stay of execution but we obviously hope that a reconsideration by the Home Office will lead to Myrtle being granted the right to stay in the UK,” he added.

Immigration officials had contacted Cothill earlier this week telling her that she was scheduled to travel on a flight back to South Africa despite the fact she has no family there and is cared for by her daughter.

Her daughter, Mary Wills, told the Press Association: “We are delighted. It has been a long, hard road and it has been very tearful.

Wills said the whole family burst into tears as they received the news. She said: “My mother is looking much better now, her mouth was quivering but now she is looking more relaxed.

“We have had a huge amount of support, it has been brilliant. Our fingers are crossed that the Home Office will see the light and let her stay for good.”

At 92 years-old and with her health failing, Wills said she feared her mother would not cope with the long haul flight back to South Africa, where she had no one to care for her.

She said: “My mum is 92 and I don’t think she would have made it over, something would have happened on that flight. Where would she go? Would they have just dumped her at the airport? Where would she have gone? Thank goodness I don’t have to think about that for a little while.”

The apparent last-minute reprieve came after Cothill had said she felt more like dying than facing deportation to her native South Africa.

“I don’t know why I have to leave Mary. She’s my only child and I want to be with her on my last breath,” Cothill said, close to tears.





“I am feeling terrible,” said Cothill. “It’s too shocking what’s happening to me. I feel like I can just lie down and die. I can’t believe how cruel they are to take me away from my daughter to South Africa.”

She said she has nobody to look after her there – most of her friends have passed away and she has no family there. “Where am I going to go? Where will I get the love and attention in my old age that I get from my daughter? No one’s going to visit me, no one’s going love me like she does. I have no one.”

Home Office officials have suggested that Wills can travel to South Africa. However, she points out that she is a British passport holder and has no right to live in the country. Her husband also has Parkinson’s disease and needs care.



Asked if Cothill feels her daughter is being told to make a choice between her mother and her husband, she said: “My daughter must choose her husband. He must come first.”

She also said that even if she did return to South Africa and survive the trip at her age and in her frail health, she doubted she would be allowed to visit her daughter.

“Why would they allow me back in when they are chasing me out?” she said.

Cothill’s application for leave to stay in the UK was refused by a court in Wales last year and a bid to appeal the decision was rejected, with the judge ruling that she was not a “person of credit” and had used “obtained entry into the United Kingdom by deception and that she and her daughter arranged their affairs with the deliberate intention of making her removal difficult”.

Here's reasons given by high court judge for not allowing 92 y/o widow appeal immigration ruling pic.twitter.com/xINguRrq5V — lisa o'carroll (@lisaocarroll) February 18, 2016

The judge also found that neither Cothill or her daughter was a “person of credit”.

Cothill was born in 1924 under the British flag and her father fought in the British army in the first world war. She lost her husband 65 years ago, four months before her daughter was born, and came to Britain after she became frail two years ago. She had hoped to continue to live in South Africa but her church friends contacted her daughter to say they believed she needed help with eating and bathing.

Her case has caused a public outcry on Twitter, with Green party leader Natalie Bennett, TV presenter Piers Morgan and many others decrying the Home Office decision to forcibly remove her at her advanced age.

Supporters have also launched a fund to help her fight a legal battle and a petition on Change.org

After reading the story in the Guardian on Thursday, British nationality experts at Philip Gamble and Partners are now trying to establish if she maybe entitled to a British passport because of her father’s Crown service.

• This article was amended on 23 February 2016. An earlier version said that Myrtle Cothill’s husband fought in the first world war. It was her father who did so.