Woman wants to sue over suffering

Charlaine Hodgson. Photo / Natalie Slade

An overstayer spared deportation at the 11th hour is considering suing immigration authorities for "13 years of hell".

Charlaine Hodgson, who came to New Zealand as a child with her English mother and Kiwi stepfather, was given a three-month reprieve from deportation after a Herald report on her plight this week.

Her original residency application was refused after she failed to get consent from her biological father - who she has never met.

She now has the right to apply for residency through Associate Immigration Minister Kate Wilkinson.

She told the Herald yesterday she will meet her lawyer today to discuss "face to face" the grounds on which she could sue Immigration and demand an apology.

Head of Immigration Nigel Bickle said any proceedings would be vigorously defended.

Miss Hodgson was arrested on May 8 in Hamilton as she was making a police report on an unrelated incident, and was at the airport awaiting deportation when her lawyer, Evgeny Orlov, lodged a High Court challenge.

She was put into police custody, and spent about two weeks in a women's prison and police holding cells.

"I did nothing wrong, and yet I was locked up with criminals and had to put up with their constant verbal abuse and swearing," said Miss Hodgson of her experience at the Manukau police station.

The department first tried to deport her when she was 15, two years after she arrived, but she managed to obtain a visitor's visa after the intervention of the then Immigration Minister, Winston Peters.

"The way Immigration have said what they've said have made them look like the hero here, but really they're not. They have made me suffer this last 13 years."

She added: "They may have granted me the right to apply for residency, but they haven't actually said 'we're sorry for putting you through what we've put you through'."

Mr Orlov said Immigration deprived her of basic rights and put her in prison when they could have put her in a motel.

He said Miss Hodgson should have been granted residency as a basic "right to remain with her family".

Mr Bickle said Immigration had gone to great lengths to help her regularise her immigration status.

"Miss Hodgson repeatedly failed to respond to Immigration's requests for information and as a result Immigration NZ was unable to assist her and closed its file in 2005," he said.

Despite her last-minute reprieve, Mrs Hodgson is still due to appear at a bail hearing today at the High Court in Auckland.