Dungavel family lose final plea

Newroz and Beriwan pictured inside Dungavel

A family of asylum seekers being held in Lanarkshire have lost their final legal appeal to be allowed to stay in the UK.

The House of Lords supported previous legal decisions that the Ay family should not be granted political asylum.

A spokesman for the Home Office said that proceedings would now be started to deport Yurdigal Ay and her four children aged between seven and 14.

They have been in the Dungavel Detention Centre near Strathaven for more than a year.

The family are Turkish Kurds who originally fled to Germany and then came to the UK.

They spent almost four years living in Gravesend, in Kent, before being taken to Dungavel last July, prior to deportation.

Lost touch with father

Earlier this month the Court of Appeal supported a previous High Court decision to deport them back to Germany but the Ays were permitted a final appeal to the House of Lords.

The children's father was deported to Germany and from there to Turkey earlier this year. The family say they have lost touch with him.

Bishop Mone, president of the Catholic Church's Justice and Peace Commission, presented Home Secretary David Blunkett with a petition of protest bearing 21,000 names two weeks ago.

The church has mounted a Scotland-wide campaign against the detention of asylum seekers' children at Dungavel.