Briton flies home after three-week ordeal in US detention facility

A Briton detained in the US for three weeks because of a visa mix-up has arrived back in the UK.

- Jamie Grierson Jennifer Rankin Brussels

Images of Rebecca Burke, 28, being welcomed at Heathrow by a loved one were broadcast by Sky News yesterday. Her return comes after her family confirmed she had been released from a detention centre.

The graphic artist from Monmouthshire was trying to cross into Canada from the US state of Washington when she was refused entry and sent back to get new paperwork.

When she tried to re-enter the US she was handcuffed and put in a cell before being taken to the Tacoma Northwest detention facility.

Her father, Paul Burke, has said she was being held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement "in horrendous conditions" and without access to legal representation. His daughter said she left the US detention centre on Monday afternoon.

She had been planning to carry out domestic chores in exchange for accommodation with a host family.

But immigration officials told her that to do this she should have applied for a working visa instead of a tourist visa. She had already stayed with a host family in Portland, Oregon, after a stint sightseeing in New York at the start of the year.