Brain family given fresh 'job offer' as deportation threat remains

credit - PA image

An Australian family facing deportation, whose case has been taken up by Nicola Sturgeon, say they have been given hope of a job offer which could potentially keep them in the country.

Gregg and Kathryn Brain and their son, who live in Dingwall in the Highlands, failed to meet a deadline on Monday to qualify for a new visa.

The UK’s Immigration minister Robert Goodwill has urged them to leave the country.

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However, Mr Brain said a "major Scottish company" had been in touch with a possible job offer.

Speaking to the BBC he said that the potential job offer had given the family "cautious optimism", and that he expected to hear more details later on Wednesday.

Brain said: "We have had a contact from a major Scottish employer this morning, or at least from the office.

"The CEO we understand will be calling us this afternoon. We don't know what the job offer is, we don't know whether it would fit visa requirements."

Mrs Brain had previously been offered a job by a distillery company, but the offer was subsequently withdrawn because it would not meet the Home Office requirements.

Goodwill has ruled there were no exceptional circumstances that would justify allowing the family to stay in the UK.

The Tory minister said the family would now be contacted by Immigration Enforcement.

He said if the family did not co-operate it could lead to them not being allowed to return to the UK at a later date.

Sturgeon, who met the family earlier this year, has said that their seven-year-old son Lachlan had "virtually grown up here, he is a Gaelic speaker, he is to all intents and purposes Scottish". 

The family moved to Scotland in 2011 on Mrs Brain's student visa.

They have said that they expected to be able to later move on to a Tier 1 post-study work visa, but the scheme was scrapped in 2012.