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The Immigration and Protection Tribunal has allowed a man to stay in New Zealand after his theft conviction as it would be difficult for him to pay for his parents’ medical expenses if he was deported to India. (File photo)
A “well-known” Indian sportsman has escaped deportation despite being convicted of stealing money from his employer to help support his parents in his homeland.
The 35-year-old man, who represented India in his sport from a young age, arrived in New Zealand to study in 2014, according to a recently released Immigration and Protection Tribunal decision.
According to the decision, the man’s sporting career saw him travel all over India and overseas, but ended due to a spinal injury.
In 2017, he was granted residency in New Zealand as a skilled migrant, based on his job at a mortgage lending institution.
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The following year, the man’s parents were involved in a crash which left them both with health complications. The man needed to send home at least $1000 per month to meet his parents’ medical expenses, in particular an urgent surgery for his father.
“The appellant felt significant emotional pressure and every day there was another request for money to pay for his parents’ care and treatment,” the tribunal heard.
In 2019, the man stole $5200 in his role as a loan officer, by withdrawing cash from an ATM and adding to a loan application so he could withdraw the additional funds for himself.
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When confronted by police, the man admitted why he had stolen the money. He was convicted of theft by a person in a special relationship and served three months’ community detention.
The conviction made the man liable to deportation, however he argued it would be “next to impossible” for him to find work in India, as he did not think employers would trust him.
“He only obtained employment again in New Zealand in March 2020 through a contact and on the basis that he did not handle cash.”
Due to him being well known in his community in India due to his former career as a sportsman, people often asked his parents about him.
”His return as a deportee would be very embarrassing and ‘a very big blow’ for him and his family,” the tribunal heard.
The man, who is of the Hindu Brahmin caste, was expected to behave to a high standard.
“As he has breached these standards, his parents will be ostracised and “abandoned” by the community.”
Additionally, the man was in a relationship with an Indian woman who has lived in New Zealand since 2009 and expected she would soon receive residency.
It was unlikely she would follow him to India as she had not lived there as an adult and did not know how things worked there. She also suffered with serious throat infections that were exacerbated by India’s high temperatures.
The tribunal ruled the man be allowed to stay in New Zealand as it would be hard for the man to find employment in his field in India to due to his offending, making it difficult to continue supporting his parents.
It was also likely the man’s five-year relationship would not survive if he was deported.
The judge who convicted the man of theft found it was very unlikely he would reoffend. The man would again become liable for deportation if he offended again within three years, the threat of which further reduced his risk of reoffending.
