Deported Nigerians: UK HomeOffice Refused Tribunal Appeal!

Judges have told the Home Office to bring a woman and her son back to the UK after they were deported.

The Home Office has been refused permission to appeal against a tribunal's order to bring a woman and her son back to the UK after they were deported.

A Court of Appeal judge ruled: "The tribunal was fully entitled to take the decision it did".

Arrangements are in place to return the mother and the five-year-old British-born boy from her native Nigeria on a flight due to arrive in the UK tomorrow.

A High Court judge and immigration Upper Tribunal judge jointly ordered the return of the 45-year-old mother, referred to as BF, and her son, RA, after finding the Home Office had ordered their removal without having regard for the "best interests" of the child as "a primary consideration".

The decision means the family's situation - especially that of RA, who was brought up in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear - will have to be reconsidered.

The judges also ordered the Home Secretary to "take all reasonable steps" to ensure the mother and her child's return from Lagos after hearing the mother suffered from mental health problems and RA was at risk of harm in Nigeria without the support he had received in the UK.

Lawyers for the Home Secretary applied for permission to appeal on the grounds that the family's case and RA's needs had been fully and fairly considered before deportation was ordered.

Refusing permission, Lord Justice McCombe ruled the tribunal was "fully entitled" to take into account the evidence of the dangers RA would face if he remained in Nigeria and "did not err in the exercise of its discretion".

The judge said: "The fact that this is a case involving a child is a matter of some considerable significance."

The mother is of Yoruba ethnicity and previously lived in Abeokuta, Ogun state, in the west African country.

She claimed her parents and siblings died in a car accident and her father's relatives tried to get her to marry someone she did not love.

The woman sought leave to remain in the UK in 2007 on the basis of "long residence" in the country, claiming she had lived here since 1991.

Her application was rejected after an immigration judge ruled that she had not been "continuously present" since 1991. In a later hearing another judge found that she probably arrived in Britain in 2006.