Gifted refugee girl sent back to Slovakia

The Home Office has deported a gifted teenage asylum-seeker despite promises by the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, to reconsider her case.

A refugee campaigner accused the Government of focusing on "soft targets" after the removal of Nikola Garzova and her family, who fled from Slovakia to escape persecution by neo-Nazis.

The Home Secretary said earlier this year that the family's application would be treated "fairly, properly and impartially" after Nikola made a direct appeal to be allowed to stay in Britain; her plight was highlighted by the Independent on Sunday in May.

However, immigration officials arrived at the family's home without warning last week, handcuffed Nikola's father, Dusan, and put the family on an aircraft bound for Slovakia.

Nikola arrived in Britain two years ago speaking no English, but within six months had been promoted from the bottom to the top stream at school and placed on a special register for gifted and talented pupils. In September 2001, she enrolled at Thomas Hepburn Community Secondary School in Gateshead, where teachers described her as a gifted pupil.

The family had been receiving treatment for Nikola's sister Vanesa, who was recently diagnosed with cerebral palsy. The child was born prematurely after her mother, Agata, was allegedly kicked in the stomach by thugs in Slovakia.

Joan Moon, Nikola's English teacher, attacked the Home Office for rejecting the family's application and said she would continue campaigning for them.

"I do believe there has been a miscarriage of justice, as the asylum procedure was not carried out correctly," she said. "I also believe the Home Office lulled us into a false sense of security by promising to consider the cases."

The Home Office is facing increasing criticism over its attitude towards asylum-seekers. Mr Blunkett has been forced to reconsider his new asylum proposals after they were rejected by the House of Lords this month. They include plans to site new accommodation centres in rural areas away from support services and to educate the children of asylum-seekers outside mainstream schools.

Independent adjudicators will hear an immigration appeal next week for a family of Afghan asylum-seekers deported from Britain to Germany.

The Home Office spent an estimated £30,000 evicting the Ahmadi family from a mosque in the West Midlands where they had been seeking refuge.

However, the High Court ruled that the Home Office acted illegally in removing the family, who had fled religious and racial persecution in Afghanistan.

Asylum charities have also criticised the Government for "wasting time" sending asylum-seekers back to countries that will eventually become part of the European Union.

These include Slovakia, as well as the Czech Republic and Poland, which are due to become members of the EU in 2004.

Keith Best, the chief executive of the Immigration Advisory Service, said that it was a "waste of taxpayers' money" deporting people.

"This is rather pointless, sending people back when in a few years they will be eligible to come here anyway," he said. "They are frankly not the people who enrage the British public. The Government is picking on soft targets."