Boat Race protester Trenton Oldfield wins appeal to stay in UK - after claiming Australia is racist

Boat race protester Trenton Oldfield will be allowed to stay in Britain after he claimed he could not move his family to Australia for fear of racist attacks on his wife and baby.

He hugged his family and supporters amid tears at a hearing today, as immigration tribunal judge Kevin Moore said it was his intention to grant the appeal against deportation. “After hearing the evidence there is no doubt ... of your character and the value you are to UK society generally,” the judge said.

Oldfield must wait 10 days for the official determination. The Home Office could still appeal. His British wife Deepa Naik is of Indian descent and their daughter was born this summer.

In April last year millions of TV viewers watched Oldfield force a temporary halt to the Boat Race when he leapt into the Thames in front of the Oxford and Cambridge crews. He said he was protesting against “elitism and inequality” in Britain. He was jailed for six months at Isleworth crown court for causing a public nuisance. The Home Office then rejected his visa application, saying his presence in Britain would not be “conducive to the public good”.

Some 200 dons, students and alumni of Oxford and Cambridge wrote a letter calling on the Home Office to let Oldfield stay. It read: “The Boat Race is a game; its disruption should not result in any individual’s deportation.

“Certainly its disruption should not ... separate an individual from his family. No one was harmed by Mr Oldfield’s actions. We do not wish this draconian penalty to be applied in the name of an event representing our institutions.”

About 100 protesters turned out today to support Oldfield, 37, a community worker who lives in Whitechapel.

At the hearing in central London, he said: “Australia is a particularly racist country,” with attacks on Indians as well as “water-cooler racism”. The Home Office said: “Those who come to the UK must abide by our laws.”