British dementia patient facing 'inhumane' deportation from Sweden
Horace Mason, who requires 24-hour care for dementia and Parkinson's, has lived in Sweden for over 25 years, but has been given until Thursday to return to the UK
The family of a 74-year-old British dementia patient have told LBC he is facing an “inhumane” deportation from Sweden after he was ordered to leave his care home and the country later this week.
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Horace Mason, who requires 24-hour care for dementia and Parkinson's, has lived in Sweden for over 25 years, but has been given until Thursday to return to the UK amid Stockholm’s immigration crackdown.
Having seen his post-Brexit application to remain dismissed, Mr Mason has until August 20 to leave the country, before his case is handed to police to enforce his removal.
Despite the concerns of his distraught children, who have produced medical evidence suggesting their father might not survive the journey back to the UK, Sweden’s Migration Court of Appeal dismissed his case on July 23.
Its ruling concluded that “the state’s interest in regulated immigration outweighs [Mr Mason’s] interest in continuing to live and exercise [his] private life in Sweden”.
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His daughter, Michelle, maintains that the family will fight his deportation.
Speaking to LBC, she said the decision had left her dad “worried, confused”, and fearing that authorities would imprison him.
“He's immobile [and] in a wheelchair, so he can't do a lot for himself. He needs 24-hour, round-the-clock care,” Michelle explained. “He gets very confused and needs routine every day - it’s like a security blanket.
“He's got like a little apartment of his own with his sleeping area and his living area and his en suite. And they are so good with him there.
“He's happy there - he's settled. We don't want to risk my dad's life on a journey that's unnecessary.”
Michelle’s brother, Carl, moved to Sweden almost three decades ago to marry his partner. A few years later, Mr Mason, known as “George” to family and friends, decided to follow his son to help provide childcare.
His right to remain in the country was challenged after Brexit.
After Britain formally withdrew from the EU, his family submitted an application for a residence permit in December 2021. This was within the time period laid out by the UK-EU Withdrawal Agreement allowing British citizens in the EU to apply for residence status if they had been living in countries such as Sweden.
In November 2025, however, three months after he had started receiving round-the-clock care, Mr Mason received a notice from the Swedish government that he had been unsuccessful and that they would be seeking his deportation.
The Swedish Migration Agency said the appropriate documents to show he had a right to residency had not been submitted; the family believe this oversight was because Mr Mason’s power of attorney, appointed by the courts as his illness progressed, omitted key evidence.
Because of their father’s condition, Michelle and Carl opted not to tell him about the questions raised about his immigration status. Now that his removal from the country is an impending possibility, however, they have been forced to break the news to him.
“He just said to me: ‘What's going to happen? What have I done? Are they going to come and take me to prison?’” Michelle recalled.
“He's very confused and he keeps asking the same questions daily, so he knows that it's going on.
“Who's going to benefit from him coming back to the UK? What's their reasoning behind him leaving Sweden? You know, because he's no burden to anybody - he keeps himself to himself and he's happy [and] getting good care.”
The family’s most recent appeal to Swedish authorities was through the country’s migration courts, utilising the Aliens Act, which provides protection for foreign nationals who would encounter “particularly distressing circumstances” if relocated.
The Swedish Migration Agency received documents from Mr Mason’s clinicians detailing his co-morbidities, including vascular dementia, vascular Parkinsonism and heart complications. His doctors’ evidence suggested that the twelve-hour door-to-door journey would disrupt his need for round-the-clock care and could put his life in danger.
In spite of this evidence, and a separate argument under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which offers protections for individuals’ private and family lives, Mr Mason’s appeal was rejected on July 23.
The ruling concluded that the state’s interest in “regulated migration” outweighed the considerations put forward by his family. This was despite the ruling earlier recognising that Mr Mason was “not considered to constitute a threat to the state's interest in regulated immigration” as he had arrived legally while Britain was a member of the EU.
Michelle says she felt “physically sick” when she read the written judgement.
“They just see him as a number, and they just said, ‘right, you need to go’. They've not seen the implications of that: the fact that it's a risk to somebody's life. These cases need to be judged on an individual personal basis.”
“It's just inhumane.”
While coping with the stress of her father’s immigration battle, Michelle has been undergoing radiotherapy for Stage 3 breast cancer.
“It's been very, very intense, and it's been a massive strain on our family as it is,” Michelle, who is still receiving treatment, lamented. “I've not been able to work either for the last nine months, so I've had to live off what savings I'd got.
“As soon as I got the okay to be able to fly, I wanted to go and see my dad. And I walked in and he said to me, ‘Who are you?’ Because he didn't recognise me as I'd lost all my hair. It's growing back a little bit now, but, as soon as I spoke to him and gave him a cuddle, I had a good cry… because I just missed him.
“It's been a really, really difficult road for me and my family so far.”
This week will likely prove pivotal for her dad’s efforts to remain in Sweden.
The family are seeking a temporary halt to deportation proceedings to allow for the case to be heard in the European Court of Human Rights, launching a GoFundMe to help cover the roughly £4,000 cost.
Michelle and Carl have also set up a petition calling for a rethink of their father’s deportation, with Carl planning to travel to Stockholm on Thursday to present it to the country’s politicians.
In recent months, Sweden’s centre-right ruling coalition has doubled down on its uncompromising immigration policies ahead of the country’s general election in September.
This has included passing a “snitch law”, requiring public sector workers to report anyone they suspect is undocumented.
Dr David Milstead, part of the British in Sweden campaign group, believes this hardline approach to immigration has had damaging knock-on effects for Brits who sought to apply to remain in Sweden through the Withdrawal Agreement.
As of the end of 2024, Sweden had rejected around 28% of post-Brexit British applications to remain - around seven times higher than the average rate across the EU.
“The Withdrawal Agreement was supposed to protect people who had built their lives across borders before Brexit,” Dr Milstead told LBC.
“In Sweden, it has plainly failed many of the very people it was designed to protect. Horace Mason’s case is the human consequence of a system that has gone badly wrong.”
“If the UK treated the deadline as rigidly as Sweden has, several hundred thousand EU citizens could have lost their rights. The result could have been an exodus on a staggering scale.”
Dr Milstead also highlighted the case of Kathleen Poole, who was threatened with deportation two years ago. She died in her Swedish care home with immigration status unresolved.
“This is not a problem that suddenly appeared with Horace Mason,” he continued. “We have been warning about refusals, inadequate outreach and people losing their rights since the Swedish scheme began in 2021.
“Horace is simply the latest case to make visible a failure that has been unfolding for years.”
A spokesperson for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office told LBC the government is supporting Mr Mason and his family with their case, and remains in contact with the Swedish authorities.
The Swedish Migration Agency was contacted for comment.