AN IRAQI woman is set to be reunited with her son in England after more than 18 months apart, having won a legal battle to be allowed back into the country.

The woman, who is in her twenties, told how her husband, in his seventies, had taken her travel documents and left her stranded in Iraq in late 2016 after they had gone there to visit relatives.

She said her husband had taken their son, now three, home to Birmingham and that Home Office officials had refused to let her re-enter Britain.

The woman challenged the Home Office ruling at an immigration tribunal and also asked a family court judge to rule that she should be given care of her child.

Immigration tribunal judges have now decided that the Home Office was wrong to stop her re-entering the country and a family court judge has ruled that the child should be transferred to her care when she returns to England.

Mrs Justice Parker recommended that the boy be taken from his father's care and placed with foster carers pending the woman’s arrival in England in the next few weeks.

She said this would ease the boy's return to his mother and urged Birmingham City Council to make the necessary arrangements.

The judge welcomed the immigration tribunal ruling and said it was “bizarre” that the woman had not been allowed to return to her son in England.

She also criticised the woman’s husband, who had “alienated” the boy from his mother, who insists she wants him to continue to play a part in the boy’s life.