Hannah Carty 

Asylum seeker Peter Gichura hopes to spend Christmas with friends in Oxford - though he is not sure how he will afford to take the train from London, as he receives only £28 a week from Croydon Council.

Unless friends help him, he won't be able to sing Christmas carols or share a meal with them, he says. Peter, a wheelchair user, was nearly deported in February following a stay in Harmondsworth Detention Centre, which caused an outcry because he did not have accessible bathing facilities or proper healthcare.

He came to the UK in 2001 to seek asylum from his home in Kenya, where he said he was arrested and received death threats because of his campaigns for the rights of disabled people. He now lives in a council flat in Croydon with no accessible shower or loo.

He is still waiting for a decision from the Home Office on whether he will be sent back. He says he worries every time he "signs on", or does his monthly check-in, and feels too nervous to ask for more money from the council or adaptations to his flat.

"I'm so confused, so distressed and so discouraged," he says, adding that his health has deteriorated because he does not have what he needs. But Peter still feels the situation is worse in Kenya.

"I cannot think of going back because it's so dreadful. There is still that social stigma. It's such a struggle."

He is also busy studying for his level four accountancy exams this month.