Mother's deportation halted by judge at eleventh hour

Fatou Tamba left 'traumatised' by Home Office treatment

- HOLLY EVANS

A mother facing political persecution in her native African country was forced to wait at Heathrow airport for 12 hours before a Home Office attempt to deport her to the Gambia was delayed by a judge.

Fatou Tamba has been held at a detention centre for almost four months, despite living with her family in Liverpool for the last 16 years and becoming a much-loved member of the community.

At 3am on Tuesday, the 55-year-old was taken to the airport and was told her flight would take off at 4.40pm, leaving her lawyers scrambling for a judge to determine her application for a stay.

Her removal was despite an ongoing legal case launched by her lawyers to prevent her deportation, with submissions made of "credible medical evidence" of a deterioration in her mental health.

Just two hours before her flight was due to take off, her application for a judicial review was accepted by a judge and her flight was once again cancelled at the eleventh hour.

She was previously left "traumatised" after she was taken to Heathrow in the middle of the night on 6 May, made to wait hours without access to her lawyers or family, and told at the last moment her removal to the Gambia had been cancelled.