TORREVIEJA WOMAN BRANDED ‘ASYLUM SEEKER’ ON RETURN TO UK

A British grandmother who lived in Torrevieja for 23 years and returned home penniless has complained of being treated like an ‘asylum seeker' after being barred from claiming benefits. Lorraine Marsland, 52, left for Spain with her parents Jim and Margaret 23 years ago but her father died 12 years ago while her mother died six years later although Miss Marsland inherited their two-bedroom maisonette in Torrevieja on the Costa Blanca.

Everything was going well; she shared the house with her daughter Lisa, 30, and grandsons Dylan and Bradley, four but things started to go wrong when she lost her job as a cook three years ago after developing anaemia. It was then that she decided to sell the 100,000€ maisonette to clear the debts she'd built up while off work. Then more bad news as she then discovered that her parents had taken out a 35,000€ mortgage against the property, which of course, she couldn't afford to pay which meant that the total cost of the mortgage and her debts meant the property was repossessed, leaving her family homeless.
Eventually they had decided to return to Britain, although Miss Marsland's daughter remained in Spain because she needed a copy of her younger son's birth certificate to get him passport. Lorraine is unhappy that officials are classing her alongside asylum seekers even though she was born in the UK and holds a British passport, but she claims that since arriving in Britain in January with her grandson Dylan, she has been denied housing benefit, child benefit, and Jobseeker's Allowance.

She is now surviving on charity handouts while living with Dylan, ten, in a room in a hostel provided by Havering Council in Harold Hill, Essex. What upset her most was when the council sent a letter which she says classified her as a person from abroad and someone who wasn't entitled to housing benefits. After looking up the law that they had quoted, she said that it included asylum seekers. Lorraine says she is stunned and should be treated better as she's a British citizen, with a British passport, and who has paid taxes. She said that she now feels like a refugee in her own country and when she called the Asylum Seekers Association to see if they could help, they just laughed.

Miss Marsland who had borrowed the air fare to return to the UK and then stayed with friends in Brentwood, Essex, before contacting the council told how she has had to sell her jewellery to raise some money and receives food parcels. Allegedly, the letter from Havering Council said Miss Marsland was 'ineligible for assistance' under sections in the 1996 Housing Act, which relate to 'persons from abroad' and ' asylum seekers and their dependants'.

A council spokesman said: 'She is not eligible because she is not habitually resident in the UK. It is nothing to do with being an asylum seeker - she has not claimed asylum. 'It is a very complicated case and we are working with her, helping her to look for employment.'