Tony Hall, born in Barbados, travelled to the UK at age 12 in 1976 and has lived in Britain for 50 years, but the Home Office has kept him on a deportation list for 14 years. Hall, now 62, was convicted in 2001 of conspiracy to rob and having a firearm with intent and served eight years in prison; he was released from detention in 2012 and his family has supported him since. Because of the deportation designation he has been unable to work, rent accommodation or claim benefits, leaving him dependent on relatives and unable to use business cards and a website a nephew produced to advertise his trade as a painter and decorator. Every fortnight Hall must make a multi-leg journey to a Home Office reporting centre, a ritual he estimates he has completed more than 350 times carrying a document with his mugshot that warns he is liable to detention pending deportation. His case sits against the backdrop of the Windrush scandal and government promises to remedy wrongful treatment of Caribbean arrivals and their children, but the Home Office has continued to treat Hall as unsuitable for rehabilitation despite co-defendants being allowed to restart their lives. As a result, Hall remains effectively barred from rebuilding after serving his sentence and faces ongoing deportation proceedings to a country he has not visited for half a century and where he has no surviving relatives.
