URGENT help required for pregnant daughter wanting to return to UK
 

Apologies for this difficult 1st thread, but am in dire need of advice. My nearly 18 year old daughter is pregnant...by the boyfriend that passed on details of where our safe is leading to our home being ransacked and everything we had being stolen. Baby due end of July.

She wants to return to UK (with portuguese boyfriend) but will be pregnant and homeless. We are not in a position to help financially at all, does anyone know what rights she has? They will litterally be getting off the plane at Gatwick and heading straight to Crawley Town Council.

My husband or his family will not help (she would have relatives there but they are adamant in their disowning of her) She is still my little girl and i need to help her desperately. The 'friends' of the boyfriend are threatening him, which is frightening my daughter, they are not nice people by any means and the police can do nothing.

She was 10 when we moved here, went to local portuguese schools and is fully fluent, his english is getting better. He wants to go to college and learn a trade and get a job, she just wants security for her child initially, then college.

Does she still have the right to abode i have heard about? What benefits could they receive? What about the boyfriend? Would they accept him? He is Portuguese but has a criminal record from when he was 16 (now 20 and behaving)

I am so on my own here, please help, any info will be greatly received.

Re: URGENT help required for pregnant daughter wanting to return to UK
 

Golly, is there any professional family counseling you can get where you are ? And you yourself dzzy need support from your family.This problem is as complicated as it gets in relationships even without relocating.

Hmmm, I'll give it a go to make a comment, or at least ask questions for you to ask of yourself and daughter. I am not a professional advisor, just a regular person.

Is the desire to return to England a kind of running away to escape her situation - for it will surely follow her.
She was 10 when she left, presumably she has visited back but how can she know that UK is the place to be - or is it her Portugese b/f pushing her to go there for his own reasons?
It's really hard to offer constructive advice but I ask why not try to work out her problems in Portugal, at least she'll be with her parents and a culture she has grown up in.

Re: URGENT help required for pregnant daughter wanting to return to UK
 

Unfortunately the reason is financial. the robbery left us with nothing (literally) and the system in portugal is not good (especially when you have a criminal record as he does, you cannot get any loans or mortgage, and if they married his record then becomes hers and she inherits his problems).

If she returns to the UK she would have a roof over her head albeit a hostel for a while, and some form of benefit. I have friends there who will help as much as they can, but the drawback is that they know he led the others to our home, petted our Rottweiller while they stole (that was just over a year ago and our 6 year old still wont sleep in his bed....even though it happened in the day and we were out, he is still traumatised).

So I am caught between the devil and the deep blue sea as it were, it is not the baby's fault, all i can do is support however i can with the information available to me. If they stayed here the problems would increase. At present they are living in an almost ruin with his family and sharing a room with his brother (who they caught smoking heroin) definately not ideal conditions. We only have 2 bedrooms now, and would be impossible to have them here (1st issue is space 2nd is my husband with the boyfriend).

So I actively need to source information on what is available to her as a returning british citizen and for a portuguese national relocating to be with her and his unborn child. All very difficult

Re: URGENT help required for pregnant daughter wanting to return to UK
 

I too am just an ordinary citizen, but how can he get into the UK if he has a criminal record? Isn't there some kind of database in place that would show immigrations officials of his record?

Re: URGENT help required for pregnant daughter wanting to return to UK
 

I hadn't thought of that problem.....so how do all the other europeans with criminal records get into UK....and there are plenty of them! I think as a euro citizen you can travel between other member states, I dont think its like America...but I really dont know which is why i am here!!!

Re: URGENT help required for pregnant daughter wanting to return to UK
 

Sorry dzzy didn't mean to upset you, but I thought it would be picked up at passport control, I may be wrong though, because as you say there are lots of criminals who get past the immigration authorities.

Though of course, this is not a good thing.......

I am sure one of the more knowledgeable members on here will reply to you shortly.

Re: URGENT help required for pregnant daughter wanting to return to UK
 

my advice would be for her to go to the UK as soon as possible, before her 18th birthday -Once she arrives in the UK she will be taken into care by the local authority as she is an unaccompanied minor. They may dismiss her from care within a day or 2, however if she can, she should insist on remaining in care for more than 3 months, providing she doesn't turn 18 at that point.

I don't know if they will support him at all, but she should be prepared to have social services involved in her pregnancy and her child's life for sometime.

Re: URGENT help required for pregnant daughter wanting to return to UK
 

Also you don't say how old the boyfriend is..... if he's older than 18 he will not get any services from the UK. Because they are not married they wont be allowed to stay together because she will be dealt with by child protective services, and he would be classed as an adult.

Re: URGENT help required for pregnant daughter wanting to return to UK
 

Fear not!! I am not upset, just a tad stressed!!! Managing this on my own and decieving my husband at the same time (i have had to promise not to help in any way) is making me ill with worry

Re: URGENT help required for pregnant daughter wanting to return to UK
 

she is 18 in a few weeks, he is coming up 21 and really wants to go to college and learn a trade. My uk friends dont see this as a problem as they are constantly moaning about polish and other eastern europeans 'getting everything on a plate' and portugal isn't an A8 category, so i think they must be entitled to something (i hope)

Re: URGENT help required for pregnant daughter wanting to return to UK
 

My area of knowledge is children - if she goes to the UK alone before she is 18 she will be housed by childrens services. She is an unaccompanied minor. She will automatically get services and shelter and before they can discharge her from their area of responsibility, they have to ensure that she has somewhere else to go to, expecially since she is pregnant.

If she goes with a 21 year old boyfriend, she is not unaccompained and they will pat her on the head, and send her off into the big wide world.

(think about what would happen if you turned up on a flight and shouted "house me someone" - they'd look at you like a mad person and say, bugger off, sort yourself out) maybe in a few days you'd get some assistance, but don't count on it on the day or the week you arrive.

Re: URGENT help required for pregnant daughter wanting to return to UK
 

Sorry Dzzy, I'm the mother of teens and a twenty something. I'm shocked she is still even talking to the man who has caused you and her little brother so much hurt.
But maybe she should be the one who goes back on her own for her safety, maybe the family will be OK with her coming but he is standing in the way.
20 and behaving now maybe, but it'd take me a whole lot longer to start trusting him again, if ever. Sometimes you have to be tough on the "kids" so they see sense and do whats right, if we make excuses and try to protect them they just screw up more.

I know we don't know the whole story, but I still think he should let her go for her safety and back off and let her be.

Re: URGENT help required for pregnant daughter wanting to return to UK
 

Just think about this for a minute... your UK friends moan about a group of people getting everything... do your friends know the circumstances of any of these people? do your friends know that these people just showed up at the council offices and were given everything?

I can't comment on who gets what, when or why.

What I do know about is the circumstances of CHILD PROTECTION (having worked in that field for (approx) 5 years in the UK.
I know that if you are a child with nowhere to go or no adult to be with, there is a legal obligation for the council to protect you.
In the UK you are a child until your 18th birthday

Re: URGENT help required for pregnant daughter wanting to return to UK
 

Sorry, he's not really 'behaving' is he if he colluded in robbing you of everything you have?

Something a little odd here.

Re: URGENT help required for pregnant daughter wanting to return to UK
 

Problem 1...they are both very jealous and wont let each other out of their sight. Problem 2, yes i still cannot get over her staying with him (even though there is no proof) but she is still my baby. My husband is of the opinion 'make your bed lie in it'. I have mentioned she would be better off going on her own initially, that met with distain and anger. I want to do what is best for her, but can only do what they will agree too. If they stay here and continue to live in those conditions I will have no alternative than to go to social services here for the baby's sake. They would only receive a one off payment of €1,500, no house, no help, just that. I dont want a 'sponger' for a daughter, but we both worked our backsides off for years and paid more than due in tax, and i hope she will continue with her education an hopefully join the workforce. With him....I would rather bury him in a field!!! But obviously I cant so have to stomach him unfortunately