A SCOTTISH MP has revealed that staff in Home Secretary Sajid Javid’s office could not find their own correspondence regarding a British Army soldier who had been refused a visa to bring his teenage daughter to live with him and his wife in the Highlands.

Denis Omondi, a lance-corporal with the Black Watch, 3 Scots, based at Fort George, enlisted the help of SNP member Drew Hendry when he was refused a visa for his 14-year-old daughter Anne, who was previously living with her mother in Kenya.

Hendry wrote to ministers a month ago, seeking meetings with them, but received no response.

Since then, he has raised the issue at Prime Minister’s Questions, spoken to UK Visas and Immigration and Javid’s private office.

He also received a pledge that the matter would be “exceptionally reconsidered”.

The MP phoned the Home Secretary’s office yesterday, and was eventually passed to their internal immigration team, who couldn’t find their own correspondence with their own reference number.

Hendry was then asked to mail a generic email address.

He told The National: “The original decision to keep Ann and her father Denis apart is a disgrace in itself, but the ongoing delays with the review are adding yet more stress for the family. As a soldier who has put his own life on the line in the British Army, Denis deserves to have his daughter with him and its high time common sense prevailed.

“There is already widespread public support for this family’s plight and the motion I raised in Parliament has gained cross-party support.

“I have now written, again, to the minister to demand answers as to why this family is being treated so badly and to urge him to speed up this process to see justice done.”

Cross-party support for Hendry’s early day motion includes backing from his SNP colleagues, Plaid Cymru, the Greens, Labour, the LibDems, the DUP and a solitary Tory.

Omondi has been in the army for eight years and has served in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Until 2012, he was unaware that he had a daughter in Kenya, but since finding out about Anne he has visited her regularly and has full custody and no contact with her mother.

The teenager, who was a bridesmaid when Omondi married Shelagh Whyte, from Inverness, 14 months ago in Kenya, is currently in a boarding school there, which her father pays for.

Speaking exclusively to The National, the NCO said: “The Home Office said they were going to review the issue but we haven’t heard anything.

“I put her into boarding school when I was in Kenya in 2016 and when my daughter was living with her mum and was in a day school.

“She was sleeping on the floor and I decided to take her to a boarding school.

“It’s not total privacy but at least she has a bed. That was when we decided to put her temporarily in a boarding school until we got a permanent solution.

“When we got married in 2017 we had already decided to bring Anne over because her mum’s situation had changed – she asked me if I could take Anne permanently, and she was willing to give us custody.”

He added: “It’s so frustrating – every time I go to Kenya I see the emotion in her eyes … there’s nothing I can do. I just have to wait because it’s the Home Office. I can’t change the rules.”

Omondi said his daughter had high hopes of coming to Scotland and until now he has not told her about the struggle to obtain her visa for fear of raising her hopes, only to have them dashed.

And he said her newly prepared room was waiting for her: “When we got married we moved to a two-bedroomed house and when Anne was finishing primary school we moved to a three-bedroomed house.

“Her room is ready – her Christmas presents are still there wrapped up, we were hoping she would be able to join us last year.

“Even my workmates have been supportive – they’re shocked by this as well.”

The Home Office said the case was still under review.