RELATIVES of a North-East grandmother who faces being sent back to Singapore are trying to raise £10,000 to fight her case.

Irene Clennell, 52, is being held at a detention centre in Scotland facing deportation, despite her marriage of almost 30 years to a British man.

She has a house in Ouston, Chester-le-Street, is her husband John’s carer, and has two British children and a granddaughter, but the Government has said she is to be sent 7,000 miles away.

Her sister-in-law, Angela Clennell, has set up a crowd funding page to raise money for legal fees.

She said: “Because of insensitive and unfair Government rules, she has been taken away to a detention centre and has been told she will be deported.”

Irene and John Clennell married two years after she moved to London in 1988 and she was given indefinite leave to remain.

Subsequent residency applications have been rejected due to long periods in Singapore to care for her sick parents who are no longer alive.

Mrs Clennell was sent to Dungavel House Removal Centre in Lanarkshire after a routine appointment with immigration service in Middlebrough in mid-January.

Angela Clennell said: “It would be heart-breaking for all of us to see her go.”

To support Mrs Clennell click here