NORMAN Brown is a local-born British citizen. But currently he is unemployed and homeless in Jamaica, with no clear understanding if he will ever be allowed to return home to Britain.

Brown, who suffers from depression and needs medication, has slept on the streets of both Kingston and Montego Bay; was admitted to the Bellevue Hospital, where he claims he was locked up for two days without medication; and is now staying with relatives in Portmore.

But he not only wants to return to his South London home, he wants an explanation, as well, as to why he was sent to Jamaica on a one-way ticket by the Maudsley Hospital in Camberwell, South London, a 100-year-old State institution, which has been one of the UK’s foremost psychiatric institutions since 1923.

The British High Commission, in response to a query from the Jamaica Observer, after Brown came to the newspaper for help, sent back a brief response which read:

“Consular officers in Jamaica have met Mr Brown on several occasions and have offered consular assistance to him. We have explained the options Mr Brown has available and outlined the support we can provide him. This has included putting him in contact with partners who can provide healthcare, medication and temporary shelter. It is up to Mr Brown whether he accepts the assistance offered.”

But Deputy Public Defender Matondo Mukulu believes Brown deserves more than that: He needs a return ticket to London.

“I arrived in Jamaica with the nurse/chaperone at the Sangster Airport on a Virgin flight at about 5:30 pm, and she just took off in a taxi. That was when I realised that it was a one-way ticket that I had,” Brown told the Sunday Observer.

“I had a Jamaica National account with about J$20,000. I drew some money and spent two days at a hotel at Ironshore. It cost me $5,700 per day. After that, I ended up sleeping on the streets,” he said.

Brown journeyed to Kingston to seek help and stayed with a friend of his father in Portmore. One morning, he desperately went to the British High Commission around 3 o’clock. The commotion attracted the attention of the security personnel and members of staff, and the police were eventually called.

He was taken to the Office of the Public Defender (OPD), in downtown Kingston later that day by police, who were not sure what to do with him. That’s when he met Deputy Public Defender Mukulu.

Mukulu volunteered to help him in his capacity as a practising barrister with plenty of experience in UK laws. He has already sent a pre-action protocol letter to the hospital, as a prelude to an injunction forcing them to provide him with a return ticket to London.

Brown, who was born in Falmouth, spent six years in the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF), then worked on cruise ships, before moving to the United States in 1994 with a Green Card. He left his father behind in Edgewater, Portmore, St Catherine.

He moved to England in 2000 to join his mother, Ivy Pinnock, who lived in Stratham and had become ill with breast cancer. He also became a British citizen.

Brown was her only son, and he drove London’s Double Decker buses and paid two caregivers to take care of her.

But she died in December, 2011 and, since her death, Brown has been suffering from serious bouts of depression. He returned home on several occasions for vacations, until his father died in Edgewater, Portmore, St Catherine in 2014 and his depression worsened.

He returned to London and eventually checked himself into the Maudsley Hospital in November 2014. The hospital is recognised as Europe’s largest centre for research and post-graduate education in psychiatry, psychology, basic and clinical neuroscience.

He was receiving treatment at the State-owned hospital, costing approximately two thousand pounds per week, until he was sent to Jamaica, he said.

Mukulu believes that the hospital should provide Brown with a return ticket to London, where he can get his medication and treatment.

“You have to send in what is called a pre-action protocol letter for judicial review, which really tells the individual or the institution you are referring to that they need to respond and get him a ticket and take him back; because they have breached his rights by sending him here and by effectively precluding him from coming back, because he does not have any money,” Mukulu explained.

“When you do that, you give them 14 days in which to respond. If they fail to respond within the 14 days, you apply to the High Court in England asking for an injunction compelling the hospital to return him,” he explained.

But, if the issue reaches the UK courts, Brown will have to get a British lawyer to handle it in the UK.

“I have seen persons sent back to their countries with a chaperone, but as part of their treatment regime. For example, if they need to be in a different environment. But, what is shocking to me here, is that at the time when he was sent to Jamaica, he was never given a discharge letter by the hospital,” he stated.

“In the first place he was the one who checked himself into the hospital. He was never detained under their Mental Health Act. He voluntarily went to the hospital and, as far as they are concerned, they had finished all that they could have done for him,” Mukulu said.

“I don’t know how true that is, but that is one of the things I will find out when I get a response to the pre-action protocol letter. So all of the things that are a mystery to us right now, will become clear once they respond to the pre-active protocol letter and they will,” Mukulu stated.