Tormented by skinheads, deported family faces bleak future

Slovakia: Asylum-seekers want a safe future for their children away from the anti-Gypsy hatred of their homeland

Dusan Garza was loading new baby clothes into his car at a shopping centre in eastern Slovakia when a gang descended upon him, calling him a "dirty Gypsy".

His wife – fearful the attackers would reopen wounds from a previous racist attack that nearly killed him – struggled to her husband's defence. Agata Garzova, who was seven months pregnant, received a blow to the stomach and began haemorrhaging. "There was blood everywhere, like somebody had been killed. I was very scared, not in pain but very, very scared," Mrs Garzova said.

The couple were turned away from the nearest hospital to their home in eastern Slovakia and told to seek specialised help in the city of Kosice. Mr Garza, 33, a softly spoken man descended from the Romany migrants who arrived in Eastern Europe from India six centuries ago, said: "I asked for an ambulance. They said no ... I was very, very scared."

Vanesa was born prematurely a few hours later. She weighed 3.5lb and had cerebral palsy due, almost certainly, to a lack of oxygen during the traumatic birth.

Mrs Garzova – a Slovak who has endured unending racism since marrying Mr Garza at the age of 19 – vowed to seek sanctuary in Britain, settling in Gateshead earlier this year.

The couple's two older children settled well in the North-east. Nikola, 13, having arrived unable to speak English, was placed on a register of gifted children. As her parents attempted to negotiate the asylum system, Nikola wrote to the Home Secretary, David Blunkett. "I know that you are a very busy and important person, but I am writing to you because my family is in a sad and bad situation." Mr Blunkett replied: "I promise you that your case – just like that of every other family who claims asylum here – will be considered fairly, properly and impartially."

Five months later, while Mrs Garzova, 35, was awaiting interviews regarding applications on behalf of herself and her youngest child, the family was deported. The immigration officers arrived at 6am on a Sunday in October. "They surrounded the house like we were criminals, like you see on TV," she said. The officials flooded the home, handcuffing Mr Garza. The family was transferred by Group 4 van to Tinsley House near Gatwick for deportation the next morning.

Frantic calls to their lawyer, who was unaware of events because the deportation details had been faxed to her office only the day before, led to a request for a three-day delay. The request was refused but the family's deportation was postponed from 7.30am the following day to 2.50pm. "The Home Office would only accept an injunction," the lawyer, Azmina Hansraj, said. "I had about 50 minutes to try and get a barrister to go to the High Court to get an injunction. I called 20 odd barristers but none of them could do it."

She said: "They are a lovely family. The children are fantastic. I was very upset, very tearful. I knew there was a solution but unfortunately because the Home Office decided everything on the weekend, I couldn't deal with it."

When Mrs Garzova refused to board the plane, Vanesa was taken from her. "I started shouting 'Give me back my child.' I am a mother first then an asylum-seeker. I sat there holding Vanesa and I thought I was going to pass out. Dusan was arguing about them losing our documentation so they handcuffed him. Vanesa was crying. Nikola was just looking at us. But I believed they would stop right up until the end, until I heard the engines," Mrs Garzova said.

Ms Hansraj said: "They have definitely been subjected to degrading treatment and a breach of human rights. I couldn't believe they were removed. I really thought this one would ... make case law."

The deportation came after 18 months of applications, appeals and judicial reviews. First Mr Garza's application was rejected. The scar that stretches from the middle of his chest to the small of his back – evidence of a racist attack in which he was left unconscious with a collapsed lung – was not considered proof of persecution.

Mrs Garzova, a petite woman with a steely core, wrote to MPs and officials with Nikola's help. Bill Morris, the TGWU general secretary, described them as "victims of bureaucratic failure". A note to the Prime Minister's wife, Cherie Blair, went unanswered.

When British doctors said Vanesa, now aged two, had cerebral palsy and needed intensive care, the family reapplied on behalf of the toddler and her mother. Without interview, they were rejected. When the Home Office acknowledged an error had been made, the family's lawyer agreed to pull out of a judicial review. By this time they had been found a pleasant house in Gateshead after weeks in detention centres. They believed the process was still under way when the immigration officers arrived. Today they are at Mr Garza's parents' home in Vysnylanec, a community of 100 people near a steel factory a few miles from the Hungarian border where the women in headscarfs speculate over what transgression the "Gypsy" must have committed to have been thrown out of Britain. The family now lives nine people to a two-bedroom house with an outside lavatory next to the pig pens and chicken coops. With jobs almost impossible to secure, they exist on his parents' £150 pension.

"If Dusan [a qualified mechanic and welder] calls a factory for an interview, they say, 'Come tomorrow'. But when he opens the door, they say, 'Sorry we have just given the job to another person'," Mrs Garzova said. While the last Romany family to move to Vysnylanec fled in months, the amicable Garzas are tolerated after more than 30 years. Even so, five years ago Ladislav Garza, then 63, was attacked and had two ribs broken. Mrs Garzova said this was just a "small" attack – a fact of daily life for many Roma living in Eastern Europe.

"In England, the teacher spoke the same way to Dusan as she did to me. Nobody said this is a 'dirty Gypsy and his children' and this is very, very important." Mrs Garzova is determined, for the sake of Vanesa and Nikola, to return to Britain. "I know if Vanesa is in England she will walk, maybe this walk will be a little funny but I know she will not need a wheelchair."

Mrs Garzova understands why people fear "scrounging" asylum-seekers, but she is determined Britain will offer her children a decent, safe life free from a "thieving Gypsy" stereotype. On Wednesday, Mr and Mrs Garza travelled to Bratislava to appeal to the British embassy, only to be told they had no chance of acceptance.

Joan Moon, who befriended the family after teaching them English, said: "Dusan and Agata would do anything for their children. They were prepared to give up their home, leave their family, and leave everything they knew to secure some sort of safe future for their children. I don't know how we as a country can treat individuals in the way this family has been treated."