Trainee nurse's plea to stay in country
 | | “At one point I felt like killing myself,"" says Lilian Kikule |
A BUDDING young nurse, who says she fled an arranged marriage to a man who she alleges raped her, is pleading to stay in Britain.
Lilian Kikule, who escaped Uganda the day she was to be circumcised, is hoping a judicial review will spare her being sent back.
The 20-year-old former City and Islington College student, who is studying a degree in nursing, said: "I am feeling depressed. I would like to be a well-qualified nurse. I like looking after people, and I think I can make a difference.
"I don't know what's going to happen if I go back. I have no family there. I wouldn't have anywhere to live and I don't have any money. At one point I felt like killing myself because I didn't think it was worth living."
Ms Kikule lives in Woodlands Park Road, South Tottenham, where former tutor Alec Turner has taken her in.
Mr Turner, 52, a lecturer in health and social care at City and Islington College, regards Ms Kikule as a daughter.
He said: "She is a bright girl. She has done a lot of volunteering work with elderly people and is on course to be a first class nurse, which the NHS is screaming out for. It would be cruel and insane to send her back to nothing."
Ms Kikule's nightmare began when, aged 11, her parents died in a car crash and she went to live with an aunt. When Ms Kikule was 15, her aunt's husband decided she should marry as he could not afford her school fees.
She fled after finding out - on the day of the operation - that she was to be circumcised. A woman brought 16-year-old Ms Kikule from Uganda to England in April 2002, leaving her in a restaurant.
Ms Kikule's asylum application was turned down when she turned 18 in January 2004. Her first appeal was refused in November 2004 and her second thrown out in May. She has been applying for a judicial review ever since.
During this time, she has been taken to Yarl's Wood immigation detention centre three times.
She said: "It was horrible. There were people who wanted to kill themselves."
The Home Office does not comment on individual cases, but a spokeswoman said: "The government has made it clear that asylum claimants who are found not to require protection will be expected to return home."
But she said the immigration service would only pursue somebody's removal once appeal rights had been exhausted.
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