DANIEL Botha thought he was simply going to visit his poorly father and attend a wedding back on a two-week break back in his 'old' country of South Africa. It should have been an unremarkable holiday but it meant he never saw his beloved family again.

That family included his wife of 31 years, Julie, and six children. Three of those children are even now aged just 18, 16 and 11.

Perhaps he should have known the rules had very recently changed and he would be stopped at Johannesburg Airport and told he wouldn't be allowed back in the country without he or Julie earning at least £18,600.

But then he had lived in Redcar, near to Julie's Middlesbrough birthplace, for nearly 15 years with no trouble. A driver, he didn't earn big money, explains Julie, but they got by and they never claimed benefits.

Holding back the tears in her kitchen Julie Botha looks down as she explains the family believed the man they loved would soon be home. They had raised money through the gofundme website to apply again for his return and were due to meet an immigration advisor last Tuesday.

Julie's brother, Colin, earned enough money and would be sponsor for his brother-in-law. The noises were all good and the family believed their agony would soon end. Then, last Saturday, came the call from South Africa from her father-in-law. Her husband was dead.

Julie stays admirably measured in her anger against the Government. She believes in immigration controls, she explains. Her husband had chest problems but would have been given proper treatment in Britain, her own home country, but she accepts the cause of death is not yet established.

It doesn't seem fair to her that anyone from the EU can come here but her husband, who contributed to the country for 15 years and had a British family, could not.

"If he was here, I believe he would be alive," she says. "It seems like Governments don't care about ordinary people like us."

Mr Botha's daughter, Carra, is more strident. "I blame them (the Government) for this. I believe the stresses and strains of this situation led to his death. All that he was and did counted for nothing.

"People, not just us, but extended family and friends, are disgusted. There will be other families in the same situation as us, they should think about actual people, families.

"My dad believed in this country. He taught us all to abide by the rules of this country right from day one. He was committed to this country."

Despite the anger, the subject Julie and Carra and other members of all ages in this close family really want to talk about is Daniel Botha himself.

"He was a good man, a really good man," says Carra, who will collect her father's ashes and bring them home next week.

"He would have left a mark on you if you met him. He did with everyone."

The talk turns to all that Mr Botha, who worked as a welder for just £300 a month in South Africa and at one point was in a plastics factory that caused problems for his poorly chest, missed.

Two birthdays for his youngest child, Jamie, another daughter's 18th, Julie's 50th, two funerals.

"It felt like we were going to get him home," says Julie. "There were no guarantees, but it felt right. We were meeting the immigration lady on Tuesday, just on Tuesday."

With that the packed room of grieving, devastated people fall silent.