Refugees to be returned to London

A High Court judge has given the Home Office 14 days to return an asylum-seeker and his young son to their accommodation in London. They had been sent more than 250 miles to live in the North-east.

Mr Justice Richards said the decision to uproot the father and his "disturbed" son was perverse. The High Court was told that the father, who has Aids and bears mental and physical scars from being tortured in his African homeland, and his son, arrived in Britain in July last year and are awaiting a decision on their asylum application.

They had been living in Haringey for a year when the National Asylum Support Service told them they would have to go to Middlesbrough. They were given three days to pack and were moved to what their counsel, Simon Cox, called a sink estate. They were later transferred to Stockton-on-Tees, a decision the judge said was made "as a result of a violent incident, apparently involving racial harassment".

Mr Justice Richards said the original move was unlawful because it "didn't really touch upon" the needs of the child, who was making progress at a London school.