8-year-old Ukrainian boy finally granted visa just hours before his family's flight
A Dorset host family says the Home Office needs to 'get its act in gear'.
Last updated 17th May 2022
A Dorset host family for Ukrainian refugees has been speaking up about the difficulties they faced, including a 400-mile round trip for paperwork and a visa arriving last minute.
After escaping Kharkiv, the families stayed in Poland where they attempted to sort out their application to come to the UK.
The two families, two mums and three children, are staying with Giles Watts and his wife in Dorchester.
Giles told Greatest Hits Radio Dorset:
"The visa process has been incredibly slow and incredibly frustrating. Two of the children didn't have passports and so the process was they had to go on a 400-mile return trip to Warsaw and back in order to do biometrics which as far as I can gather is just a photograph and finger printing. So it was a hugely long way to go for the sake of a relatively small amount of information.
"We filled out online very lengthy forms and supplied all the documents, residents passports, birth certificates, permits to travel, and it went into this ginormous black hole in the Home Office. Two of the visas came back in just over two weeks, another one came back a week later and then the two children who didn't have passports, theirs just took a hugely long time."
During that time Giles says it took contacting his local MP, Chris Loder, to get answers from the Home Office. They were repeatedly promised the visas were almost sorted but then heard nothing for a week.
Giles added:
"The last one, the visa we got through, was literally the day before they were due to fly over to the UK. Just massive stress on the parents involved so we were very disappointed by that process, that's fair to say."
He had this message for the Home Office:
"Get your act in gear. It's so frustrating. Surely there's little more to do than issue a number and get the visa out. I don't think they really understand how much anguish they've caused the hosts and the Ukrainians in that process."