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General News of Monday, 31 July 2000

Source: Times

Ghanaian Asylum Seeker Gets ?30,000 Flight Home

A Ghanaian asylum seeker has been flown home in a private jet at a cost of ?30,000 after she became hysterical about leaving her sick son, the Home Office has confirmed.

Patience Sapani-Awnobi was accompanied by immigration officers on the flight to Ghana on Saturday as a "last resort" after commercial airlines refused to take the distressed woman, a Home Office spokesman said.

Ms Sapani-Awnobi, from Biggin Hill, south-east London, who arrived in Britain in 1992, has a 17-year-old son entitled to stay in this country who suffers from sickle-cell anaemia, according to a report in the Times newspaper.