I haven't seen my children for three years, but if I go home I will be killed

But his broad smile and affable manner mask an inner turmoil he rarely speaks of.

The father-of-five is one of an estimated 10,000 Zimbabwean refugees effectively living in limbo in Britain – unable to return home for fear of their lives but denied work and asylum in this country.

Sixpence fills his days with valuable volunteer work, dividing his time between Southampton General Hospital, The Red Cross, Second Chance Animal Rescue and The British Heart Foundation.

He has even received a prestigious Mayor’s Parlour certificate for outstanding service.

But despite his attempts at an ordinary life here in Southampton, Sixpence is living in torment.

He desperately misses his wife Cecelia and their five children, who he left behind in Zimbabwe three years ago.

Sixpence, 53, came to Britain to visit a cousin in 2006 but, during his stay, came under suspicion from Zimbabwean police of disloyalty to Robert Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party.

Sixpence remembers vividly the routine phone call home that shattered his family’s life.

“I called my wife from my cousin’s house to see how she was. She told me my son had been accused of stealing Zanu-PF documents from a friend’s father.”

The missing documents were never found but police searching the Mutambo family home spotted photographs of Sixpence during his time in the Rhodesian Forces – the army that fought against Mugabe for white minority rule during the Rhodesian civil war in the 1960s and 70s.

“In Zimbabwe they are suspicious of you just because they think you don’t support Mugabe,”

says Sixpence, who guarded Rhodesian airbases during the conflict which ended with the creation of the Republic of Zimbabwe under Mugabe’s rule.

“It’s not like Europe – if you are suspected of supporting the opposition party you are in danger.

“My son was innocent and I have nothing to do with those papers but the police knew I was ex-forces. When they found out I was visiting Britain it made it worse. They thought I was siding with the Europeans.”

Terrified of being persecuted and even killed in his native Harare, Sixpence felt he had no choice but to remain in the UK.

His short trip to visit family had turned into an indefinite stay.

“There are certain groups like the Central I n t e l l i g e n c e Organisation (CIO) that monitor the airport,”

says Sixpence, whose son Nyasha, 21, has fled Zimbabwe for South Africa.

“If I go home they would take me in for questioning and I believe my life would be in danger. There are no laws like in the UK. People in Zanu-PF and especially the Zanu-PF youth base are so dangerous.

“They are prepared to kill you. I can’t go home because I fear for my life.

“Even with the recent changes, Mugabe is still in power. I was right to be in the Rhodesian forces but now I am being persecuted for it.

“My country used to be a happy place when it was Rhodesia. Now look at it. I have seen terrible things – people killing each other as though they were nothing but mosquitoes.”

Sixpence’s first application for asylum was refused by the Home Office in 2007 and he is still waiting for a decision on an appeal case.

Without refugee status he is unable to work in Britain and cannot arrange for his family to be brought to the UK.

All he can do is wait.

Meanwhile, his wife Cecelia remains in Harare.

“I love my husband and I miss him so much,”

says Cecelia.

“I just wait for the time when I can see him again. We speak on the phone about once a month but it is not much. If he came back here I think they would kill him.

“What has happened to my family makes me so sad.”

According to Julian Bild of the Immigration Advisory Service (IAS), Sixpence’s situation is representative of a wider problem.

The IAS – an independent charity to help asylum seekers in the UK – advises 36,000 people and opens 7,000 appeals case files every year.

“There has been much research on the problems faced by Zimbabwean asylum seekers in the UK who are neither being granted permission to stay here, nor being returned to Zimbabwe,” said Mr Bild.

“Many Zimbabweans are effectively destitute and the government continues to deny them the right to work. There may be up to 10,000 people in this position.

“People who have put in appeals years ago are still waiting for decisions and many Zimbabwean cases have been delayed because of changing laws. They are caught up in a backlog process – stuck in the system where all they can do is wait.

“It’s too dangerous to send them home – the government couldn’t risk it – but neither have they been granted asylum. It is a situation that can go on for years and one of the biggest things we are trying to do is to get them work permission while they wait.”

Sixpence is currently living in hostel accommodation in Bitterne, surviving on £42 a week from the Government. He suffers from insomnia and clinical depression.

“If I could just be a person who has a future: going to work and coming home to my family it would be better,” he says.

“Just sitting like this is terrible. I don’t know who I am. Sometimes I just sit here with no reason for carrying on.”

The volunteer work, he says, provides a sense of purpose and an escape.

“I like meeting people and people like me. It makes me feel like I am myself – I am Sixpence again. Sometimes I just want to have friends who I don’t have to talk about all this with.

“If I talk about it, I look at myself and I don’t know what has happened to me.

“I save up the money to talk to my wife on the phone but I don’t say too much because I don’t want her to know how bad I am feeling. She is alone and I am alone.”

Zimbabwean asylum seekers and UK law ■ Between 2002 and 2006 the government changed its position on sending Zimbabweans back home to a country descending into chaos.

■ November 2007: The Asylum and Immigration Tribunal decides that conditions in Zimbawe are not so bad as to justify giving Zimbabweans humanitarian protection.

■ March 2008: The government announces its intention to resume forced removals for failed Zimbabwean asylum seekers but does not enforce the threat.

Thousands of exiled Zimbabweans are left in immigration limbo.

■ November 2008: A new legal ruling recognises that Zimbabweans who cannot demonstrate loyalty to Mugabe’s regime are at risk in their own country - despite the power-sharing agreement between Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change. If claimants can prove they are in this situation they will be granted refugee status and permission to work in the UK – if not they will be sent home.

■ The Home Office maintains that the government’s policy towards asylum seekers is “humane and compassionate”.

A spokesman said: “Whenever someone needs our protection we will grant it. But where they are found not to need protection we will expect them to return home.

“Since 2006 several hundred Zimbabweans have returned home voluntarily, many taking advantage of our assisted returns schemes.”

ZIMBABWE’S BLOODY HISTORY In 1964 Ian Smith – Prime Minister of the British colony Southern Rhodesia – rejected the British government’s conditions for independence and went on to declare his country the independent state of Rhodesia.

Britain cut all ties with Rhodesia and the African nationalist parties Zapu and Zanu took up arms against the regime. These nationalist parties formed “The Patriotic Front” and the so-called Bush War against Rhodesia began in 1972.

By 1977 the Rhodesian Forces were suffering terrible casualties. The civil war ended in 1980 when Rhodesia became part of the new Republic of Zimbabwe with Robert Mugabe – head of the Zanu-PF party – as Prime Minister.

Mugabe’s brutal regime earned worldwide notoriety and concerns continue for the impoverished country despite the power-sharing agreement between the dictator and Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change which was approved in January.