A COUPLE who feared they would miss the funeral they had travelled to the UK for have accused the government of not showing compassion to people trying to navigate complex quarantine rules.

Nadia and David Swan, who are British but live in red list country UAE, arrived in the UK last Friday, May 21, to attend the funeral of Mr Swan’s father in Darlington.

Prior to flying, they had spent 10 days in Bahrain, which is on the Government’s “amber list”.

But due to an error, they mistimed their flight by 17 hours, which meant officials in the UK said they should be treated as coming from a “red list” country.

Mr Swan’s father Alan died on May 9, aged 94, and his funeral at West Park crematorium was scheduled for May 28 to allow the couple to attend.

They left UAE on May 11 to allow them to spend the required 10 days there before travelling to the UK. Their plan had been to self-isolate at their home and had paid for covid tests on day two and day five, along with a “test-to-release” on day five, which, if negative, would allow them to end self-isolation early.

However, when UK Border Force staff learned they had been in UAE on the morning of May 11, they were told to book a £2,400 quarantine package at Heathrow Terminal 4.

The law says anyone who has been in a red list country “in the period beginning with the 10th day before the date of their arrival in England” must go into hotel quarantine.

After six days of battling with officials, they were eventually told on Thursday afternoon that they would be given a 12-hour exemption to drive to Darlington.

They attended the funeral but had to leave immediately, which meant they could not spend time with Mr Swan’s mother, Marion.

The couple, who were both vaccinated in February, are now back in quarantine at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, in Heathrow, which ends at midnight tonight.

Mrs Swan said: “It’s just the most ridiculous thing. We’ve been out of a red list country since May 11 and we’ve had six PCR tests.”

She added: “It’s an appalling system. I understand there is a pandemic and there has to be risk assessment but we are not posing any risk.

“They are putting people under a huge amount of unnecessary stress and there’s no understanding whatsoever. I would say there isn’t any compassion.”

The department for health and social care does not comment on individual cases. A spokesperson said: “Our top priority is saving lives and through our border regime we are minimising the risk posed by variants.

“We recognise the impact restrictions have on many people and the managed quarantine scheme does include a number of specific and limited exemptions on compassionate or medical grounds, including for funerals.”