Unvaccinated grandma allowed to stay in WA after facing deportation

There has been a major development in the case of a mother facing deportation after flying into Australia to visit her family.

An unvaccinated British grandmother has been allowed to stay in Western Australia after her visa was granted.

It comes after 64-year-old Claire spent two days in limbo under the threat of deportation following an issue with her vaccine exemption when she entered the country.

She flew to Perth from Manchester to see her family, including her three-year-old granddaughter, who she had not seen since she was two weeks old.

7News reported the happy resolution to Claire’s case on Wednesday night following feverish campaigning from her son Michael Henderson and the whole family.

Mr Henderson’s mum, Claire, has been allowed to stay in Australia. Picture: Facebook

An emotional Mr Henderson told 6PR on Tuesday they were waiting for her at the airport on Monday but she never came out, calling it a “diabolical” and “disgusting” situation.

“Unfortunately, seven hours later, somebody finally spoke to us to say they’ve actually declined her entry into Australia and she’s now going to be deported,” he said.

“She was interrogated three times on the record, they took her fingerprints, and they took her possessions away from her.”

Authorities wanted to send Claire back to the UK on a 10.00pm flight on Tuesday, but she was later allowed to stay in Western Australia until April 23.

Then on Wednesday, her visa was suddenly approved.

According to Mr Henderson, his mother had done everything she needed to do before arriving, including getting her visa granted, G2G pass sorted and putting in a vaccine exemption.

Claire was granted the exemption because she has temporal arteritis, a condition which causes the arteries in her head to become inflamed.

The medication she takes to treat it carries the risk of strokes, aneurysms and heart attacks.

Claire’s family had been fighting to keep her in Perth. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Christian Gilles

It is believed the problem was caused by a breakdown in communication between the Western Australian government and the Australian Border Force (ABF).

The exemption rules were apparently tightened and conditions changed after authorities granted Claire’s visa back in November.

But Mr Henderson said a lack of communication and clear reasoning had been an issue for the family throughout the ordeal.

The ABF said on Tuesday it was not aware of Claire’s condition, despite interrogating her and seeing her exemption documents the night before.

“They’re saying, ‘As far as we knew, the reason she wanted to enter in on an exemption was because she had a cat allergy,’” Mr Henderson said.

“This is an absolute shambles; they interrogated her for over seven hours on three separate occasions – they had all of her medical exemptions in front of her.

Mr Henderson also said it was the fault of authorities for allowing her on the plane in the first place.

Claire will now need to complete seven days of hotel quarantine before seeing her family, but her visa has now been granted.

7News reported the family was given no explanation for what happened when they received the long-awaited news on Wednesday.