To anyone walking past, the man in the park was just a rough-sleeper trying to keep warm under a pile of newspapers.

What they didn’t know was that Robin Mutwira was a university-educated father with a 15-year teaching career in his native Zimbabwe.

A combination of a family tragedy and Mugabe’s brutal regime led Robin to the streets of northern England. After the death of his wife in a car accident, he brought up four daughters in Zimbabwe while working as a teacher trainer.

One daughter became a nurse in Britain. Six years ago Robin got a phone-call saying she had brain cancer. “I came to the UK. I wanted to take her back to Zimbabwe, to be with the family, but she was too ill. She moved into a hospice, aged 22,” he says.

During his daughter’s final weeks, Robin was warned not to return to Zimbabwe. As he belonged to an organisation opposing Mugabe, he would be identified for questioning.

With no support network in Britain, he slept rough. “I slept in the middle of a roundabout, I felt safe there,” he says.

“I collected newspapers to sleep on. My money ran out and I didn’t know anywhere that could help. I remember sitting on a park bench, some girls asked me, ‘Are you a tramp?’ I didn’t realise what I’d become.”

After spotting a church poster advertising ‘miracles’, Robin was taken in by church members who advised him to claim asylum in Liverpool. From there he was sent to Croydon – and told he should have claimed asylum straight away.

“It was such a confusing time,” says Robin. “I was in a strange country and my daughter had just died. How could I know about official procedures?”

Eventually he claimed asylum, but because of the delay it took another five years to gain refugee status.

“When you claim asylum, they decide if your case is worth looking at, if you should be sent home or if you’re a criminal and should be sent to prison,” he says. “It was decided my case was worth looking at.”

Robin lived in a hostel on the south coast, crowded with asylum seekers, many of them lawyers, doctors, teachers and engineers. “It was like being in jail,” he says. “We had to sign out and every room had a camera.

“One day I was told I was going to Bradford. I arrived at night and four of us were taken to a house.”

Robin began the process of gaining refugee status, involving a series of interviews, to enable him to stay in Britain. “People think asylum seekers take jobs, but you’re not allowed to work. I didn’t have any money, just vouchers to live on,” he says.

Initially told he didn’t qualify as a refugee, Robin had to leave the house, but managed to get accommodation through the Red Cross.

“I learned it was important to have friends,” he says. “I became active in churches and met lots of people.”

Robin finally gained refugee status last December. He hopes to train in immigration law, to help others with similar experiences but, at 62, fears his employment chances may be hampered by age. “When you can’t work for so long you lose the best years of your life,” he says.

“It’s difficult for immigrants to become senior workers or professionals; they end up with low-level jobs. When you can’t work you lose your identity. You become a nobody. It’s difficult to rise up from that.”

Robin is involved with projects helping refugees, he’s vice-chairman of Bradford Refugee Forum and a volunteer at the Taylor Partnership, which provides legal support for people seeking refugee status.

“I have learned a lot about law over the past five years,” he says. “I know what people are going through. Many people develop mental health problems. One young woman I’m helping is from Rwanda. She was raped twice and became mentally ill. She was found by police wandering the streets in her nightclothes. She’s been trying for six years to get refugee status.”

Despite his experiences, Robin has good humour and a strong, resilient spirit. He misses his daughters and longs to return to Zimbabwe.

But, having witnessed the brutality of Mugabe’s regime, and lost relatives and friends to the violence, he is realistic about it.

“You don’t know who is watching you, so you trust no-one,” he says. “If Mugabe hadn’t destroyed everything, I would go back. I’m still Zimbabwean.” - For more information about the Taylor Partnership, ring (01274) 744777 or visit thetaylorpartnership.co.uk