Academic who fled Hong Kong pleads for son, 11, to live in UK

A HUMAN rights academic fleeing censorship in Hong Kong is appealing against the Home Office’s refusal to grant her son a UK visa.

Dr Jane Richards, 41, said she and her family can no longer live safely in Hong Kong for fear of being raided if she continues her work on the right to protest and freedom of political speech.

She was blacklisted from jobs in Hong Kong after publishing research documenting 100 street protests, the “blatant disregard” for the rule of law and “brutality” by the police and the city state’s authorities.

Dr Richards has moved to the UK with her second husband, Chris, and two daughters, Florence, five, and Georgina, three, after securing a job as an academic at Leeds University.

But Henry, 11, her son from her first marriage, has been denied a visa despite her former husband supporting it and being granted formal approval from the family court in Hong Kong that it is in the child’s best interests.

As an Australian married to a British citizen, she has been granted a visa to come to the UK after more than a decade living in Hong Kong – but her son has been barred under the complex rules that govern dependents.

Even though her former husband – a senior executive of a major international corporation – has consented to their son relocating, the rules dictate that unless she has “sole responsibility” for her son, she has to show “serious and compelling family or other considerations which make exclusion of the child undesirable”.

Dr Richards said she may have to leave the UK if the Home Office maintains its refusal.

She said: “The rejection of my son’s visa has been devastating for us. He really wants to be here with me and his sisters and stepdad.” She said she had thought it unlikely a westerner would be subject to the same ruthless action as Hong Kongers, but felt now it was dangerous with the Chinese authorities looking for foreigners to scapegoat.

Dr Richards said: “It is very oppressive. With the security law [passed in 2020], anything can be interpreted as subversion or secessionist. You cannot have an open discussion.”

She said it meant that she could not teach students freely or accurately about human rights for fear of putting them at risk of breaking the law.

Dr Richards added that even children are censored. She said her son, Henry, was reprimanded at school for mentioning protests he has seen on TV.

A Home Office source said the case would be reviewed in due course.