A POLITICAL party has backed a campaign to prevent a family of Macedonian refugees being deported from Britain.

Teesside Green Party has written to the Home Office to urge it to reconsider its decision to return the Dimitrievski family, who fled to Britain two years ago because of the war in the former Yugoslavia.

The family's bid to stay in Redcar, where they have settled, already has the support of Redcar and Cleveland Council, Redcar MP Vera Baird, several schools and residents.

Dad Marjan, mum Lile and sons Sasha, 12, and eight-year-old Miki, are preparing to ask the Court of Appeal for the decision to be revoked.

The Green Party letter, to Immigration Minister Beverley Hughes, says: "Please consider what deportation would mean to those who know the family - in particular the school friends of the two boys. What would it say to them about natural justice, about the rule of law, about the state they live in, if their friends Sasha and Miki are forcibly removed with their mum and dad by the authorities, having committed no crime and against the wishes of their friends?"

The letter says the family would be at risk if forced to return to their home near the border with Kosovo.

Green Party spokesman Peter Goodwin, of Marske, said the whole community was backing the family.