91Èȱ¬

A nicer man you could not hope to meet. He's polite in the extreme, his gentle smile beams at you even though he is full of anguish that his life has been turned upside down. His hospitality is generous even though he's forced to live on the handouts of friends.

It was earlier this year that I first met Chun-Chao. Beneath that smile he was a broken man - someone the British authorities had mired in red tape.

After many years of years of successfully obtaining student and work visas he simply asked to make his settled life on Tyneside more permanent. But when they scrutinised his records they found a flaw that sparked a chain of events worthy of a story.

The immigration officials got it wrong. They had failed to stamp his passport, sparking the chain of events and then, he says, they just wouldn't listen to him. Despite a mountain of correspondence Chun-Chao felt his voice just wasn't heard. I've seen some of the government paperwork and it's not impressive.

From law-abiding, tax-paying to illegal immigrant threatened with deportation; that one missing visa stamp cost him his job, his reputation and his family life.

What happened to him simply wasn't necessary and the today admits it will learn from the mistakes it made in his case.

The saddest thing in all this is that despite overwhelming evidence that he had never breached the visa rules and had clearly been here all along, this could not be resolved by natural justice.

The 91Èȱ¬ Office Border Agency have put out a statement saying it is incorrect to say they did not believe his story and put the mess down to a procedural issue.

The bottom line here is that despite several attempts by Chun-Chao to be heard it was only once the 91Èȱ¬ got involved that the agency's demand he leave the country turned into an .

As a journalist I thrive on bringing people's stories to a wider audience and some have had quite an impact, but I'm no brain surgeon - I don't save lives.

Tonight though I can say a story I helped tell did indeed change a life and that of his wife and young son - I take great pride in that, but I can't take the credit.

That falls to a woman who quite bizarrely hardly knew Chun-Chao. She was a friend of a neighbour of his and heard his story second-hand. She was so angered she called me and to tell me about it and that's actually how it all came about.

Karen take a bow. That one call changed everything.

You see, we can all make a difference and the proof of that is in Chun-Chao's smile. It's now a little wider and no longer hiding the very real worry of being turfed out of a country he holds very dear.

What do you make of what happened here? Your comments always add great interest to this blog so please do give me your thoughts.

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