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Australia to deport mother of five to UK for crimes | Australia to deport mother of five to UK for crimes |
(about 4 hours later) | |
A mother of five who has lived in Australia for most of her life is facing deportation to the UK. | |
Kelly Webb, 30, a recovering drug addict, has been in and out of prison and last April was given an 18-month sentence for aggravated burglary. | |
On her release, she was taken into immigration detention and is awaiting a decision by Australian ministers. | |
Webb, who left the UK when she was two, fears she and her children would end up living on the streets if deported. | |
Under Australian law, visas can be revoked when someone has spent more than a year in jail. | |
'Cruellest thing' | |
Webb, 30, has not been back to the UK since her mother, father and elder sister first travelled to Australia in 1988, from Stoke-on-Trent in the Midlands. | |
Speaking to BBC News from a detention centre, she said: "If I end up in the UK, I'd have no housing, no family, no friends. I could not take the children - I could not be that selfish. I would be living on the streets with the poor little buggers." | |
Webb, who never became an Australian citizen or naturalised, said: "Had I known this could happen, I would have got citizenship. | |
"If the minister says I can't stay, there's nothing else I can do. I'll have to pack my bags. They will take me to the airport. And that's it." | |
Webb, from Geelong in Victoria, said she found out she faced deportation in March, three days before she was due for parole. | |
"This is the cruellest thing anyone could ever do," she said, adding that her prescription for anti-depressants had been doubled to help her cope. | |
Drug addiction | |
Webb has an extensive criminal history, including a conviction for killing her stepfather. She was sentenced to a good-behaviour bond after the court heard he had been abusive over an extended period. | |
"I know I have done a lot of bad things - they've been mostly due to drug addiction," she said, adding that she has undergone recovery and rehabilitation programmes. | |
"I'm not a bad person. I made wrong choices. I want a quiet life with me and my children. I want to keep my family together." | |
Her eldest, nine, currently lives with his father in Perth. While in prison, her six-year-old twins and five-year-old son are being cared for by their paternal grandmother, and her one-year-old baby girl is with Webb's mother. | |
Her late husband, father to her four youngest, was killed in a motorcycling accident last year. | |
While in detention, she is able to see her baby once a week, but has not seen her other children and describes the conditions there as worse than prison. | |
"It's so, so hard. I just want to be a mother to my children. Their dad was killed - I am all they have got." |