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DEPORTATION FEAR: School head backs 'model students'
THE girls' headteacher has called on Home Office officials to show some "humanity" before pressing ahead with plans to deport them.
Joe Hughes has been touched by the plight facing the Joseph family, and shares their fears over safety should they be forced to return to Sri Lanka.
Mr Hughes said: "Jeevitha and Neeraja joined The English Martyrs School and Sixth Form College in October 2008, and have settled in very happily.
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"They are model students. They are exceptionally hard-working, always smartly dressed, keen to learn, have forged good relationships with their peers, are popular with staff and have a bright academic future ahead of them."
The school has provided all the equipment and uniform that the girls need to study and are also supporting them in learning English.
Mr Hughes added: "The Home Office take a very legalistic view of this, so the example I would give is that the father has been abducted and thrown into a van and driven off.
"The Home Office then say 'where's the evidence of this?
"Obviously a family on the run will have left at short notice, and have not got the evidence that the Home Office say they need to prove the case.
"We know that people are being killed on a daily basis out there. The girls and their mother fear that if they are sent back to Sri Lanka, they will be killed.
"We would ask Mail readers to consider the situation of the girls, the fact they are here, they have been through a horrendous last couple of years.
"They need all the support they can get to keep them here."
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Weather for Hartlepool
Saturday 11 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 1 C to 5 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: South
Tomorrow
Light rain
Temperature: 2 C to 6 C
Wind Speed: 9 mph
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