A grandmother who has lived in Australia for more than 40 years is facing deportation after she was discovered to be in the country illegally.

Mary Ellis, 74, left London for Australia in 1981 at the age of 31 and has since built a life for herself in the picturesque Northern Rivers region of NSW.

Her then partner told Mary he had been granted a permanent visa, but 40 years later the pensioner now faces deportation at any time.

In Tweed Heads, Mary is regarded as a local hero for the time she spends volunteering and raising money for the Salvation Army.

She was awarded the prestigious NSW Volunteer of the Year in 2023 for her work with Agape Outreach, which provides hot meals to the homeless.

However, the Good Samaritan could be forced to return to Britain despite having an Australian driver's license, Medicare card and superannuation card.

“This is my home, I love Australia,” said a tearful Mary A current issue on Monday.

She worked for 30 years in the hospitality industry and for the NSW government, where her employers left her visa status unchallenged.

Mary has a son, a daughter-in-law and two grandchildren in Australia.

The grandmother said “nobody said anything” about her visa until she was contacted by the Home Office.

The retiree was asked to visit the Brisbane office, where she was told she had been living in Australia illegally for more than 40 years.

'She doesn't know a soul there [in England]not a soul,” said migration agent Stanley Schneider.

“She's always paid her taxes, she hasn't even had a ticket, she's never violated anything, she's never offended anyone.”

Mr Schneider, who is helping Mary pro bono, said the pensioner qualifies as an 'absorbed person' under the Migration Act 1958.

To be recognized for an absorbed person visa, a non-citizen must have been in Australia from April 2, 1984 and never left the country on or after that date.

Mary says she has never left Australia since 1981, not even for a holiday.

However, Home Affairs claims Mary entered Australia three times under a different alias, and was out of the country between February 1983 and November 1986.

The department said in a letter that they believe the real identity of the now-deceased man she was in a de facto relationship with at the time, Martin Ellis, was actually Trevor Warren.

“As you were not in Australia on 04/02/1984, you are not considered an absorbed person and do not hold an Absorbed Persons Visa,” the letter said.

However, Mary insists this is 'wrong' and says she does not know why Home Affairs believes she left and re-entered Australia under different aliases.

She has documents claiming she was in Australia at the time, including a work reference from a restaurant in Tasmania.

It says Mary worked there from 1983 to 1986 as a waitress and cashier.

A successful Medicare enrollment letter signed by then Health Minister Neal Blewett is also used to argue Mary's case.

Mr Schneider says she would not have received the letter if she was not living in Australia at the time.

“Mary Ellis is a decent human being, someone we should be very happy with in Australia, and she is Australian, let's face it,” he said.

An Iranian pedophile who has waged a 14-year asylum battle claims he cannot be deported because he converted to Christianity and tattooed a cross.

The 45-year-old sex offender – described as a 'danger to the community' but whom The Mail on Sunday is barred from naming by a court order – was baptized just eleven days before filing his latest legal appeal to to remain in Britain.

Last year, an immigration judge rejected his claim, ruling that his inability to acknowledge the “miserability” of his sickening crimes showed he was not a Christian.

But in a stunning development, the judge has been reprimanded by a higher court for a 'completely inappropriate analysis' of the pedophile's 'relationship with God'.

The case, which has already been heard before six judges in a seemingly endless cycle of appeals, will have to be heard again at another immigration tribunal.

The criminal, known as MM, is one of more than 300 migrants who have appealed to the Upper Tier Immigration Tribunal for converting to Christianity.

Other cases include a 43-year-old Bangladeshi man who was jailed for a minimum of 12 years for the murder of his wife, and a 37-year-old Somali career criminal who was convicted of 12 crimes, including assault and burglary.

Meanwhile, chemical attack suspect Abdul Ezedi was granted asylum after claiming to have converted to Christianity, despite two convictions for assault and indecent exposure.

Police searched the Thames in central London yesterday, with officers saying they believe the 35-year-old likely drowned after falling into the river from Chelsea Bridge.

He was last seen there shortly before midnight on January 31, leaning over the railing.

Former Home Secretary Dame Priti Patel last night described the MM case as 'appalling', adding: 'The Church must stop providing assistance to dangerous criminals and those who seek to exploit our system.

“These violent criminals need to go from jail to plane. That's what the public expects.'

The Church of England has stressed that it is not its job to investigate asylum seekers.

Court documents obtained by the MoS reveal how MM illegally entered Britain in 2010 after leaving Iran. His first asylum application was rejected two months after his arrival, prompting a series of appeals.

Six years later, while waiting to discover whether he had been granted indefinite leave to remain, he was convicted of two charges of sexual assault and jailed for seven and a half years.

Court papers show he committed sexual offenses against a child.

He was served deportation papers in 2018, but filed a human rights appeal.

Later that year he began visiting his prison chapel. However, in early 2020, his appeal appeared to have been rejected and he was on the verge of deportation.

He then filed a new human rights claim based on the risk that he would be tortured and killed in Iran for abandoning his Muslim faith. He also claimed he would be in danger because his brother worked for the BBC.

On February 19, 2020 – 11 days before this new claim was filed – he was baptized. He also claimed to have a tattoo of a Christian cross, although the Home Office claimed his interest in Christianity only began shortly before he was imprisoned.

In March 2021, Judge Paul Cruthers allowed his appeal, ruling that MM had become 'genuinely committed to the Christian faith' and would face a 'real risk' in Iran.

The judge is said to have been 'impressed' by evidence from Wesley Downs, the boss of Christian charity Renewal North West, who ran a weekly study group at MM prison. Mr Downs declined to comment this weekend.

Later that year, Judge Cruthers' ruling was overturned by the Upper Tribunal and MM's case was sent back to the First Tier Tribunal.

This time, in a scathing ruling, a different judge dismissed MM's case, saying he did not believe his claim that he had converted to Christianity.

He slammed the perpetrator for “minimising” his crime and “blaming the victim” and said he had “failed to demonstrate that he had honestly and sincerely acknowledged the seriousness of his sexual offenses against a child.”

Despite this, MM was allowed to appeal and in a ruling last month, Judge Peter Lane of the Upper Tribunal criticized the earlier decision, saying the judge had 'embarked on an… inappropriate analysis, peppered with rhetorical questions, of the relationship of the appellant with God'.

The criticized judge was not named in publicly available documents and the judiciary declined to release his name last week.