A REFUGEE support group has applauded a judge's decision to return an Aids-stricken asylum seeker and his traumatised son from the North-East back to London.

Mr Justice Roberts described the decision by the Home Office to remove the father, who was tortured in his native Zambia, and his "disturbed" son, from Haringey, north London and resettle them in Middlesbrough, as "perverse".

The judge took the highly unusual step of giving the Home Office a 14-day deadline to return the pair to Haringey.

The High Court heard that the boy, aged seven, was so traumatised when he arrived in Britain that customs officers thought he was struck dumb.

But a year after the pair first landed in London - during which the boy made progress in primary school - they were sent to Middlesbrough with little warning.

Now, after suffering regular racism on the streets of Teesside, the pair hope to be reunited with the friends they made in the capital.

Peter Widlinski, team leader for the North of England Refugee Service, said: "There have been about 2,000 refugees dispersed to the Tees Valley in the last year and most have been assimilated well.

"But there should be proper assessment by the Home Office before they are sent away from London, where support mechanisms are stronger.

"It is more difficult to fit in here. London is more multi-cultural and, as an example of some of the problems they might face, the National Front were leafleting Middlesbrough town centre last weekend."

The father, who suffers from an advanced stage of Aids, had been living in the Haringey area for a year when the Home Office's National Asylum Support Service (NASS) told him that he was being moved.

He and his son were given three days to pack their bags and were moved to a part of Middlesbrough described by their counsel, Simon Cox, as a "sink estate".

Justice Richards said the decision to send them north "didn't really touch upon" the youngster's needs, and that made the decision unlawful.

He said: "I am driven to the conclusion that the decision reached was a perverse decision ... he shouldn't have been sent to Middlesbrough in the first place."

He did rule, however, that NASS's decision could not be faulted on health grounds because the treatment available in the North-East was comparable with London