Sat | Nov 29, 2025

Parents disappointed after UK Home Office reportedly rejects visa for 8-y-o daughter impacted by Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica

Published:Friday | November 28, 2025 | 12:28 PM
Old sign for the UK Border and Immigration Agency (now Border Agency) at the entrance to Home Office, Lunar House, Croydon. Image shot 2007. Exact date unknown.
The Image Factory / Alamy Stock
Old sign for the UK Border and Immigration Agency (now Border Agency) at the entrance to Home Office, Lunar House, Croydon. Image shot 2007. Exact date unknown.

The UK Guardian is reporting that a Jamaican woman and her British husband have been left disappointed after the Home Office rejected a visa application for their eight-year-old daughter.

They had hoped to bring their child to the UK, as she has reportedly been left in a desperate situation following the passage of Hurricane Melissa.

The child’s mother, Kerrian Bigby, reportedly indicated that the home in which her daughter, Lati-Yana Stephanie Brown, was living with her grandmother in Hanover was destroyed by the Category 5 storm, which hit Jamaica on October 28.

According to the Guardian, Bigby and the child’s British father, Jerome Hardy, married this year after she joined him in the UK in April 2023.

After saving up for the £4,000 visa application fee, the couple reportedly applied for the visa in June.

After Hurricane Melissa, the couple reportedly urged the Home Office to expedite their visa decision, saying that “an urgent situation had become an emergency.”

The Home Office has since rejected the visa application, reportedly indicating that it has not been demonstrated that the child cannot be cared for by relatives in Jamaica.

“As her mother, being separated from my daughter is incredibly painful. I cannot sleep at night knowing she is far away and not receiving the care and support that every child needs. The emotional toll on both of us is significant. Reuniting with my daughter is not just a wish, it is a necessity for her development and my ability to fulfil my responsibilities as her mother. I am so distressed, I can’t eat or sleep,” Bigby was quoted as saying.

The couple want to appeal, but their lawyer reportedly said an appeals backlog of 106,000 cases means it could take up to two years for the case to be heard.

They have reportedly asked the Home Office to reconsider its decision.

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