Latest news with #MichaelPereira
The Independent
4 days ago
- Health
- The Independent
‘My father came to the UK to find safety – but he died alone in an asylum hotel'
Michael Pereira's father Victor was a 'man with a big heart', who was generous in his affection, and who loved to hug and kiss his family. 'He was a man full of passion, with a strong temperament, yet he had a unique way of making people laugh and feel at ease', Mr Pereira remembered. Mr Pereira never knew why his father felt he had to flee his home country Colombia, eventually claiming asylum in the UK in August 2023. But he was certain his father had not had any mental health issues before he sought safety in Britain. In testimony to his father's inquest, Mr Pereira detailed how he saw his father deteriorate from someone who was sociable and easy-going, to a person who was increasingly paranoid. Victor Hugo Pereira Vargas, 63, killed himself in his room at a Home Office asylum hotel in Hailsham, Sussex on 13 October 2023. Just a few weeks earlier he had made a desperate attempt to leave the UK, turning up at Gatwick airport and asking immigration officers to put him on a plane out of the country. He had even filled out a voluntary return form to express his interest in being returned to Colombia, and had told his son several times that he was afraid of being moved to the Bibby Stockholm barge – describing it as a 'maritime prison'. An inquest into his death heard how he was repeatedly failed by staff at the hotel, and the officials in charge of managing the Home Office's large asylum contracts, who didn't know the full reality of how the hotel was being run. Hotel staff missed signs of his deterioration despite conducting regular welfare checks, did not help him report to the police a robbery he suffered, and took two weeks to book him a GP mental health appointment. While Clearsprings Ready Homes managed the overall contract, they subcontracted the running of Mr Pereira Vargas's hotel to another company Crown Lodge. Crown Lodge then outsourced the staff of the hotel to a third company, Becker Hoffman. Some staff were 'not appropriately' trained to deal with vulnerable people, the coroner found. Clearsprings told the court it came to rely on subcontractors as an emergency measure to cope with an unforeseen rapid increase in small boat arrivals shortly after the pandemic. Testimony from his eldest son Mr Pereira, who lives in the United States, detailed how his father would wake up in his hotel room drenched in sweat, unable to sleep, and how he felt isolated and had no one to talk to. 'He was a man who gave everything he had. One thing that always weighed heavily on him was his desire to give his children a better life than the one he had,' Mr Pereira said: 'He was always striving for that, but often he struggled to figure out the best way to achieve it.' Speaking about his father's death, Mr Pereira said: 'I still haven't been able to process it to be honest because I don't understand what happened or why no one took care of him when he went there in the first place to find safety.' On 9 August 2023, Mr Pereira received a voicenote from his dad in which he 'sounded really worried' after seeing news of the-then Conservative government 'putting people on a boat' – an apparent reference to the controversial Bibby Stockholm barge. On 12 August, he received another message in which his father asked: 'What are they going to do with the people? Are they going to put them in jail? Because that was a maritime prison'. According to incident reports, by 16 August, Mr Pereira Vargas was asking hotel staff how he could leave the UK, was visibly distressed, and asked the staff to call the police. In mid-September, he told hotel staff that he had not slept for three days, but they did not book him a mental health GP appointment until two weeks later. He again asked hotel staff if the Home Office could arrange for him to leave the country, according to the incident reports, and said he was hearing banging noises and was getting panicked. In an act of desperation, he went to Gatwick Airport at the end of September and requested that an immigration officer put him on a flight out of the UK. He was apparently told to go to an immigration centre in Croydon, but having no money to travel there he slept overnight in the airport car park. Vulnerable, panicked and without money, Mr Pereira Vargas encountered some other Columbians who said they could get him a plane ticket if he sold his watch to them, the inquest heard. After being taken in, these people then reportedly stole his wallet and documents. He recounted what happened to hotel staff after managing to return back. The last time Mr Pereira spoke to his father was a few days before he died. He told the inquest: 'I just remember that he sounded stressed about staying there and he was saying he wanted to find a way to go somewhere else but he didn't give me any details about his plans. I thought that he was just trying to figure out a way to sort out his asylum.' If you are experiencing feelings of distress, or are struggling to cope, you can speak to the Samaritans, in confidence, on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email jo@ or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch.
The Guardian
21-02-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
Friendship, fitness and freedom: why LGBTQ+ Australians are turning to sports clubs to find ‘queer joy'
Gay bars have traditionally been the most visible queer-inclusive spaces in Australia for LGBTQ+ people to gather. But with dim lighting, loud music and a focus on alcohol, they aren't always conducive to genuine connection – or welcoming to all. And with dating apps blamed for the closure of gay bars and a trend towards younger people drinking less, many LGBTQ+ Australians are finding community through sport. 'It's so intimidating to go to a gay bar,' says Michael Pereira, 34. 'People think you're going to have this Sex and the City experience and suddenly meet your authentic friends … I couldn't do that.' Five years ago Pereira joined Frontrunners, an LGBTQ+ running club that organises a handful of meet ups a week across Melbourne. The group has proved transformative. 'People at Frontrunners have quickly become my best friends. It's the best thing I've ever done,' he says. Melbourne Frontrunners has been meeting for more than two decades and there are similar chapters across Australia and around the world. 'It's all about a healthy lifestyle and creating connections and friendships,' says Malcolm Campbell, president of the Melbourne chapter. The group organises social events and an awards night and attenders often grab coffee or breakfast after running sessions. 'Some people prefer that part to the run!' says Campbell. A growing number of sports and fitness clubs are catering to Australia's LGBTQ+ community, offering hiking, squash, yoga and tennis. While building connections is a priority for many attenders, being able to play sport free of discrimination is a more basic draw for others. It was discrimination in mainstream basketball leagues that motivated Stella Lesic to found Queer Sporting Alliance (QSA) in 2015. 'The majority of participants [in mainstream leagues] are well intentioned, but it just takes one or two people to shatter the fragility of trans and gender-diverse participation,' Lesic says. Now one of Australia's largest LGBTQ+ inclusive sports clubs with 1,500 active members, QSA offers basketball, netball, futsal and rollerskating in cities across the country. Lesic says QSA prioritises fun over competitiveness: 'We're the George Costanza of sports – we do things the opposite way.' The first QSA team was, by Lesic's admission, terrible. 'It didn't matter to us whether anyone could play well … We wanted the kid that got picked last at school to be in our team,' they say. VicHealth research reveals LGBTQ+ people in Australia are less likely to participate in organised sports, with trans and non-binary individuals significantly underrepresented. Many are deterred by past experiences of discrimination, particularly at school – more than half of LGBTQ+ young people say they have witnessed discrimination in a sports setting. Michael Wright, who helps run queer climbing club ClimbingQTs in Sydney, says he had a 'complicated' relationship with sports at school. He now organises indoor and outdoor climbing events as well as multi-day excursions around the country. 'We're building queer joy,' he says. As with QSA, ClimbingQTs has a focus on trans inclusion (a spin-off TransQTs group meets regularly), and last month it held a session for deaf and hard of hearing climbers. Wright says visible representations of happiness and inclusion are important to the LGBTQ+ community, which has higher instances of poor mental health. 'It's really hard to be what you can't see,' he says. Beau Newell, of LGBTQ+ sports inclusion organisation Pride in Sport, says although there has been progress towards inclusion in mainstream sport over the past decade, there is often an 'illusion of inclusion' among sports leaders. 'CEOs might believe they're inclusive because they've had no complaints, or they might believe it's a safe environment because there's a gay man on the board or the women's team is full of lesbians, but that's laughable,' Newell says. 'That's kind of the mentality that a lot of people still have in this environment, and so, if anything, that just reinforces the critical need for us to do more education.' For older LGBTQ+ Australians, the rise of inclusive sports clubs is bittersweet. Alastair Richards, who joined Frontrunners more than 20 years ago and is now in his 60s, says: 'I wish this existed in my 20s. I definitely would've joined [then] – although it does start at 8.30am!' With anti-trans rhetoric coming out of Trump's White House, including a ban on trans athletes from participating in women's sports, many in Australia fear a ripple effect, particularly in an election year. 'It feels like standing on a beach waiting for a tsunami to hit,' says Lesic. Thanks to the work of many sports leaders, Newell believes Australia is in a better position than the US, but stresses the need for 'active allies' in the sporting community and society at large. 'We actually need people to step up … if you hear a homophobic, biphobic or transphobic slur, joke or some sort of innuendo, call that out,' Newell says. Ten years after founding QSA, Lesic continues to play basketball. But has their game improved? 'I'm still terrible,' they laugh. 'My knees are made of dust and hope, but I'm having fun and that's what's important.'
