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Royal Navy sailor Petty Officer Roamel Crichton, left, rushed his daughter, Dedra, to England hoping she would receive medical treatment. (Photo: Mail Online)
Royal Navy sailor Petty Officer Roamel Crichton, left, rushed his daughter, Dedra, to England hoping she would receive medical treatment. (Photo: Mail Online)
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A campaign has sprung up on the Internet to try to halt the deportation from England of a 13-year-old Vincentian girl who is in need of urgent cancer treatment.

The girl, Dedra Crichton, is daughter of Vincentian and British citizen Roamel Crichton, a petty officer in the Royal Navy, with which he has been a sailor for 12 years.

Reports say that Dedra needs emergency surgery and chemotherapy after being diagnosed with bone cancer last month.

Her father was granted emergency leave to return last week to St Vincent where Dedra lives with her maternal grandparents.

When Mr. Crichton arrived, he was told Dedra was in “urgent need” of chemotherapy and surgery not available in St. Vincent, Mail Online has reported.

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The publication said that he was assured that the teenager would receive medical treatment in the United Kingdom.

The two flew to London last Wednesday, but Dedra was stopped by immigration officials who took her passport and said she would have to return to St. Vincent within a week because she was not a British citizen.

Simon Collyer Gosport of the United Kingdom has started a campaign on Change.org.

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He is asking persons to sign the petition to UK Home Secretary Theresa May to “Stop the (fatal) deportation of 13 year old Dedra Crichton and allow her, as the daughter of a 12yr serving Royal Navy sailor to stay in the UK to have her life saving cancer treatment”.

As of 2:30 p.m. east Caribbean time on Monday, the petition had garnered 3,906 supporters, 1,094 shy of the target.

“Whilst I appreciate there has been misuse by tourist patients of our NHS and it is rightly cracking down, this father has served this UK in the military for 12 yrs and his dying daughter is being deported and denied the human right to live. Common sense is a flower not found in every garden and certainly, it would seem is not to be found here in the Government’s cold treatment of this clearly “special case,” Gosport said.

“What I find hard to ratify is, the speed at which this dying girl has been deported when her father has served and defended this country, she will most likely die without this treatment, and after her death it will be too late to discuss her human rights and whether she should have been treated as a ‘special case’, YET, Alleged terrorist Abu Qatada was allowed to remain here for years, appealing against deportation.

“SADLY, THAT IS TIME DEDRA DOES NOT HAVE, SHE NEEDS TREATMENT NOW, let’s discuss the small print after the treatment, DURING HER LIFE, NOT AFTER HER DEATH. That is the very least this country owes A FATHER WHO HAS PUT HIS LIFE ON THE FIRING LINE FOR THE FREEDOM OF EVERY SINGLE BRITISH CITIZEN.

“PLEASE SIGN THIS PETITION NOW WHILE SHE CAN STILL BE OPERATED ON AND SAVE THIS YOUNG DAUGHTERS LIFE, who knows what she might grow up to be and offer the world, given the chance, a pediatric surgeon maybe, maybe not but let’s ensure she has a future. right now she is only staring death in the face,” he further said.

Efforts have also begun to try to raise funds to help the sick girl.

Persons willing to help are being asked to make donations to Barclays Bank Account Number 20322083, sort code 20-69-40.

Donations can be made from anywhere in the world.