A GRAN who’s lived in Britain for four decades has been denied the chance to find her real family – because she’s failed a citizenship test three times.
Nguyen Lockwood, 46, was rescued as a tot from under a pile of rubble, naked apart from a nappy and one shoe, by disaster aid workers at the end of the Vietnam War.
She was the only survivor from her village after it was bombed by US forces.
Nguyen was one of six orphans taken from Saigon to Australia where she was adopted by British couple Robert and Helen Stewart.
They had been travelling in the country with a black and white minstrel show.
Now, 44 years later and despite Ngyuen being a naturalised British citizen, the UK Government has refused her a passport after she failed a UK citizenship test three times.
“I went to school in the UK, have a National Insurance number and pay tax but, just because I can’t pass this stupid test, I can’t have a passport. I’m so angry and frustrated,” she said.
Nguyen is desperate to track down any family she has left in Vietnam. But she claims she has been left in limbo after repeatedly failing the controversial “Life in the UK” test.
“I would love to go back to Vietnam to find out if my parents or family are still alive.
“But I’ve just failed the test for the third time, so I still can’t get a passport.
“Why should I have to keep trying to prove I’m a British citizen?”
Nguyen was found in a bombed out village called Cholon by some nuns. It’s thought she’d been there for three weeks.
She was taken into an orphanage with five other rescued babies and later adopted by Helen and Colin.
They moved to Teesside in 1972, and the UK has been Nguyen’s home ever since.
The care home worker, who has a strong Middlesbrough accent, passed an English language test with flying colours.
However, Government pen-pushers told her she would not automatically qualify for a passport until she had passed the Life in the UK test. The exam – previously dubbed “a bad pub quiz” by a Durham University academic – involves answering 24 questions on British customs, politics and history in 45 minutes.
Nguyen has travelled to London three times in two years to take the £50 test but has failed every time.
That means she’s also been unable to visit her adoptive mum, an ex-pat who now lives in Spain, who last year had a major operation on her bowel.
Helen, 70, told The Sunday Post Nguyen was desperate to see her because “she thought I was dying but she couldn’t get out without a passport”.
“I’m still not well,” added the gran of 12. “It is one of my biggest wishes in life to see Nguyen again.”
Nguyen’s childhood pal, Jacqueline Brown, 46, has now written to Prime Minister David Cameron demanding answers.
She wrote: “Nguyen is a British citizen who cannot hold a British passport until she spends a fortune trying to pass a test that half of all British people born and educated here would fail.”
Last night the Home Office defended the test. A spokesman said: “All migrants applying for naturalisation must satisfy the knowledge of language and life in the UK requirements.”
READ MORE
Violence erupts at far-right demo over immigration
British ex-pats lose High Court battle over right to vote in EU referendum
Enjoy the convenience of having The Sunday Post delivered as a digital ePaper straight to your smartphone, tablet or computer.
Subscribe for only £5.49 a month and enjoy all the benefits of the printed paper as a digital replica.
Subscribe