Lati-Yana Brown’s parents had asked for application to be expedited so she could join them in UK after house ruined
An eight-year-old girl left destitute in Jamaica after Hurricane Melissa has been barred from coming to the UK to join her parents.
The Guardian reported on the case of Lati-Yana Stephanie Brown after the hurricane. Her mother, Kerrian Bigby, a carer, moved from Jamaica to be with Lati-Yana’s British father, Jerome Hardy, a telecommunications worker, in April 2023, leaving their daughter to be cared for by her grandmother.
The couple married this year and after saving up for the £4,000 visa application fee for Lati-Yana to join them, applied in June. After Hurricane Melissa, the couple urged the Home Office to expedite their visa decision, saying “an urgent situation had become an emergency”.
The hurricane destroyed the house Lati-Yana was living in with her grandmother, who Bigby said was no longer physically able to look after her, in Cash Hill, Hanover, which was badly damaged by the storm.
