Vivian Solon

Vivian Alvarez Solon (born 30 October 1962) is an Australian who was unlawfully removed to the Philippines by the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA) in July 2001.

Vivian Alvarez Solon was born in the Philippines on 30 October 1962.

On 26 May 1984, she married an Australian man, Robert Young, in the Philippines.

She then changed her name to Vivian Solon Young.

The two moved to Brisbane, Queensland, where Solon was naturalised as an Australian on 3 March 1986.

In 1990, the couple separated, and they divorced in 1993.

After the divorce, she changed her name back to Vivian Alvarez Solon.

Between 1995 and 2000, Solon received treatment for mental health issues.

She was diagnosed as suffering from a paranoid psychotic condition, which affected her behaviour.

During this time she developed a minor criminal record with the Queensland Police, and was at one point taken into protective custody by police in Brisbane, who were worried about the effects of her mental condition.

On one occasion, her fingerprints were recorded and entered into the national law enforcement database, CrimTrac.

According to a police report, Solon had left her five-year-old son at the Brisbane City Hall childcare facility on 16 February 2001, but did not return to pick him up.

DIMIA officers first interviewed Solon on 3 May 2001.

According to the Comrie report, the officers presumed that Solon was an illegal immigrant, and did not do proper background checks.

On 12 July, Solon was transferred from the hospital to DIMIA custody, and taken to a motel in Brisbane.

She told the officials that she was an Australian citizen, and did not want to leave the country, however she was ignored.

On 17 July, Queensland Police officially listed Solon as a missing person, several months after she had failed to collect her son from childcare.

However, this information was not picked up by DIMIA.

A representative from the Philippines consulate in Brisbane visited Solon on 18 July.

In the meeting Solon said that she had been married to an Australian man, a Mr Young, but this information was not passed on to DIMIA.

The consulate refused to issue Solon with travel documents, because they did not consider her fit enough to travel (she was in a wheelchair at the time), and so DIMIA arranged for a different doctor to visit her.

This doctor declared her fit to fly, and signed the medical certificate allowing Solon to be deported.

On 20 July Solon was escorted onto a plane by Queensland Police, and flown to Manila.

Solon's family had listed her as a missing person since July 2003, and until May 2005, did not know that she had been deported.

The circumstances surrounding Solon's unlawful deportation have caused much controversy in the Australian media.

The report revealed that several senior DIMIA officials in Canberra knew about Solon's unlawful deportation in 2003 and 2004, and failed to act.

It also found that Solon's mental and physical health problems were not given proper attention.

In May 2005, it became public knowledge that she had been deported, although DIMIA knew of its mistake in 2003.

In October 2005, a report on Solon's deportation was released following an inquiry conducted by former Victoria Police commissioner Neil Comrie.

Solon returned to Australia on 18 November 2005.

Queensland Premier, Peter Beattie revealed on 6 May 2005, that her son, by then nine, has been in foster care since.

At 11:47pm on the night of 30 March, ambulance services were called to a park in Lismore, in the far north of New South Wales.

They found Solon next to an open drain in the park, suffering from head injuries.

She also had difficulty moving her legs.

She had most likely sustained these injuries after falling into the drain, although some media reports speculated that she had been in a car accident.

To this day she claims she was knocked off a pushbike by a passing car, but the medical view has always been that she was physically assaulted.

She was taken to Lismore Base Hospital, where she was treated for her injuries.

She was soon moved to the psychiatric ward because she was behaving aggressively towards hospital staff, presumably due to her head injuries.

A social worker Guing Coop who visited Solon at the hospital identified that she was of Filipino background, and suspected that she was an illegal immigrant.

On this basis the social worker contacted the local branch of the Department of Immigration, Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs.