Home Office admits mistaken threat to deport grandmother

A grandmother faced with deportation to America was celebrating yesterday after the Home Office lifted the threat and said a civil servant had made a decision that "defied common sense".

Mary Martin, 55, of Trimley St Mary, Suffolk, had been told to leave by tomorrow, although she had lived in England since the age of two. Officials now say there has been a mistake.

Ms Martin, a divorcee with four children who was born in Baltimore, Maryland, learnt of a problem with her status after her mother, June, died two years ago. She had left America as an infant and was not registered as a British citizen.

Her application for UK citizenship was refused because the Home Office did not accept she had lived in the UK for a sufficient time. A Home Office spokesman said: "The Immigration minister, Beverley Hughes, personally reviewed this case as soon as it came to her attention this morning and decided Mary Martin will be granted indefinite leave to remain. The decision to refuse her was clearly a mistake and defies common sense. We will investigate this and see what lessons can be learnt."

Ms Martin, a cleaner, said she had been made ill by the worry. "It's been torment. I have been really anxious," she said. "It was fantastic to hear the news.

"I just felt sick. I could not understand how they could treat me like this. It was so ridiculous. I went to school here. I have a national insurance number and have paid all my contributions. I never applied for a passport because I never had enough money and never wanted to go abroad."

Her MP, the former Conservative minister John Gummer, said: "She never should have been in this position. Some civil servant needs to decide whether he is in the right job."