Windrush man's son voices anger over DNA request

The Home Office has been criticised for requesting that a Windrush scheme applicant take a DNA test before it would consider his claim for compensation.

- NADINE WHITE

Dijoun Jhagroo-Bryan, 39, described as “degrading” a requirement for evidence of his relationship with his father, Anthony Bryan, who faced deportation in 2017 despite living in Britain for five decades.

Anthony, 66, who moved to London from Jamaica at the age of eight, was wrongly arrested, detained twice and threatened with forced removal from the country. But when Dijoun applied for compensation for long-term trauma and financial losses due to his dad’s plight, the Home Office requested a DNA test.

“I’ve suffered watching my dad being held in prison and I’ve suffered going through the steps that I needed to do in order to get him to stay in the UK,” Dijoun told the BBC, adding that the experience has been traumatic. “It’s outrageous. Me submitting a DNA test doesn’t change what I’ve gone through.”