Couple asked to 'prove love'

IMMIGRATION officials in London are today due to hear an Ipswich couple's love questioned, as a Turkish wife pleads to be allowed back into Britain.

The British Embassy refused Meral Yildirim permission to come home to England, after she visited her parents in Turkey in June 2002.

She has been desperate to return to her husband and home in Foxhall Road, Ipswich, but her initial appeal to the Home Office was refused.

Now the case under the Immigration Act, is due to be heard by the Immigration Appellate Authority in London.

Lawyers for both Mrs Yildirim and the entry clearance officer, will present their cases today. A presiding judge will then decide her fate several weeks from now.

Her husband Bayram Karabulut, whose plight featured in the Star in earlier this year, has said it is frustrating to have their love for each other questioned, insisting: "This is the woman I love and we are being kept apart."

Mr Karabulut, 33, who runs a kebab shop in the town, has told how the problems first satrted when the Home Office queried the validity of their marriage.

He claimed that officials had wrongly told them although Meral's application for an indefinite visa had not been processed, she would be allowed to return if she showed her documents to the embassy in Istanbul.

Mr Karabulut, who suffers from the blood disorder Hepatitis B, said the delays had caused them both extreme stress so much so that he has needed counselling.

A Home Office spokesman told the Star that when a foreigner marries a British citizen, they have to go through a probation period before gaining British residenc - which can take up to two years. They shouldn't leave the country within that time, because they do not have full rights of leaving and entering the UK, unless special permission has been granted.

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