But through a miracle, my friend helped me to get a visitor visa for six months, and my niece got me a plane ticket.

In future those refused a visitor visa must re-apply rather than appeal.

The vast majority, 1.9 million, were visitor visas.

In 2010, a total of 423,000 applications were made for family visitor visas and 338,000 were approved.

He used that application as a basis for a new attempt to get a student visa, as opposed to the visitor visa he had sought previously.