A father whose British-born baby is being threatened with removal from the UK is urging the Home Office to be flexible with how it enforces rules on visas.

Massah, who is 13 months old, was born in the Midlands in April last year. Both her parents have been living legally in Britain since 2021 when her father came to study for a PhD from Jordan and her mother came as his dependant.

They’ve tried applying for a child-dependent visa for their daughter, but this month, they received a letter from the Home Office telling them their daughter “will be required to immediately leave the UK” and will have to re-apply for a visa from abroad.

It’s all because the family took a holiday abroad together in January.

The letter from the government goes on to state: “In the particular circumstances of your case, it has been concluded that the need to maintain the integrity of the immigration laws outweighs the possible effect on you/your children.”

Massah’s father, Mohammad, says he and his wife have faced sleepless nights. Despite their MP and lawyers trying to argue their case, so far they have made no further progress.

They don’t want to have to take their baby to Jordan in order to re-apply due to the current instability in the Middle East and are concerned that, even if they did, the application could still be refused.

Mohammad tells Sky News that his daughter’s relationship with Britain will be forever changed: “I can’t imagine how I can tell her the story in the future that the country you [were] born asked you to leave while you [were] a year old.”

He shows us the reams of paperwork he has accumulated to find a solution.

“I’m trying to fix everything. I don’t need to consider a one-year-old infant as an overstayer here,” he said.

A Home Office spokesperson told Sky News: “All visa applications are carefully considered on their individual merits in accordance with the immigration rules.

“We are working closely with the parents of this child to ensure they receive the support and direction they require regarding the application.”

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The tightening of the UK’s immigration policy has been a core commitment by the government in an effort to reduce the number of people coming to the country.

Statistics released on Thursday showed the net migration figure has dropped slightly, but it comes as the prime minister confirmed that the removal of asylum seekers to Rwanda will not take place until after the general election.

The Rwanda plan remains a central Conservative pledge, but voters will just have to trust that planes will start going without seeing any evidence before polling day.

The election campaign will be fought in part over the future of asylum seekers.

At one charity in Derby, people who came to Britain by small boat arrive still wearing the clothes given to them at a processing centre near Dover.

With Labour planning to scrap flights to Rwanda, there’s now the possibility that many asylum seekers living in fear will never have to face the possibility of being removed to the African nation.

But Damil, from India, is still anxious: “Maybe after [the] election we are happy with this because the Labour Party will be our next… I don’t know what is going on.

“Still, we are worried about these things. I’m scared about Rwanda and the election too.”

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One man, who we’re calling Nahom, was detained and taken to a detention centre earlier this month.

Just a few days ago, he was informed he’d been selected for the first flight to Rwanda – in June.

He spoke to us on the phone from the removal site where he had been notified “on 24 June there will be the first flight to Rwanda”.

But when we reported Thursday’s announcement by Rishi Sunak, he said the message gave him “hope” for his situation: “If the Labour Party [win] there are no flights at all… It’s good news to hear.”

Compared with Hollywood, Grimsby is perhaps more fish factory than dream factory – but just like La La Land, the Lincolnshire port town is aiming for the stars with ambitious plans to become a go-to location for filmmakers.

“Build it and hopefully they will come,” is the belief of Emma Lingard, a resident who once worked in TV but is now a manager at Associated British Ports (ABP), the owners of Grimsby Docks.

“Every producer or location manager that has come to us is saying that London is overpriced,” she says. “They’re finding there are too many other productions jostling for the same space… so they’re looking up North.”

Seeing the potential, ABP has set up the Kasbah Film Quarter, based around some of its historic buildings. The plan is to expand by building a much sought-after resource in the UK – a sound stage, for soundproof recording of film and TV, as well as production hubs.

It might seem a stretch to compare Grimsby with the famous Hollywood film and musical Sunset Boulevard and its antagonist, the fading silent movie star Norma Desmond – but there are definite parallels as it tries to find its place in an industry that doesn’t exist as it was.

Once the biggest fishing port in the world (it’s still big, it’s the catches that got small), signs of that faded glory remain but that’s actually quite a sought-after asset within UK film and TV.

“There is a great appeal for the old buildings we have… the authenticity and the character,” says Lingard. Part of the appeal for filmmakers is how they can save costs when it comes to building sets, she says.

It is an area that’s home to a wealth of empty historic buildings, including eight nationally listed ones which are clustered together and closed off to the public. These recently doubled-up for wartime London in the Netflix drama Bodies, starring Stephen Graham.

“You can look at that building and think East End of London or maybe a street in the back of New York somewhere,” Lingard says. “You’ve just got to have that vision.”

Grimsby also provided a location for filming of the 2007 film Atonement, starring Keira Knightley and James McAvoy.

And it already has the acting talent. Thomas Turgoose, who found fame in his early teens when he was cast in Shane Meadows’s critically acclaimed This Is England, has remained a resident despite his film career taking him all over the world.

“Shooting in London is a nightmare,” he jokes. “If you’re in someone’s way or put a five-minute delay on them getting a coffee, oh my God, it’s like you’ve just ruined their Christmas… which is probably one of the reasons I’ve never moved.”

Turgoose is convinced more productions would shoot in his hometown if everyone was more aware of what it has to offer.

“We’ve got so much going on around here… if you want to come to Grimsby and shoot period drama it looks amazing, but then also you can go to the beach in five minutes. Hopefully this opens people’s eyes.

“It goes back to people being proud of Grimsby and having a vision and being confident in it… and hopefully the film industry is going to do that for it.”

Would the likes of Hollywood stars such as Timothee Chalamet enjoy swapping the capital for Cleethorpes, a nearby seaside town?

“I think he’d quite enjoy it, actually,” says Turgoose. “I mean, he’d love the fish and chips.”

But are locals quite ready for an invasion of carb-denying A-listers?

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Jade Shearer, the manager of local chip shop Ernie Becketts, reckons she could convert a few.

“I definitely wouldn’t say no to serving Brad Pitt,” she laughs. “We need more things to bring people back here again and make it as busy as it used to be.”

With Grimsby and Cleethorpes likely to be a battleground in the next general election, politicians will undoubtedly promise all sorts of investment, including getting on board with Grimsby’s Hollywood ending – but the creative minds here are currently ploughing on alone.

They say they’ve learned over the years that politicians’ promises tend to end up on the cutting room floor.

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Putting it politely, Lingard says: “If opportunities came along to give us pockets of money to help restore the heritage, then great… but you need to see action sometimes more than words.”

For now, it’s the big screen action she’s concentrating on, including coming up with ways to attract the likes of 007 up North.

“Actually, in 1981, a James Bond movie was filmed in Grimsby,” Lingard laughs. “So why not?”

Get ready, Mr DeMille – Grimsby is ready for its close-up.

Sky News’ Target Towns series aims to follow the build-up to the general election from a key constituency prized by both Conservatives and Labour – Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes. Send in your stories to targettowns@sky.uk.

The sister of a man who died in the Hillsborough disaster has cast doubt on whether a law aimed at preventing official cover-ups can ever truly work “until they start sending people to prison”.

Infected blood scandal inquiry renews pressure to introduce ‘Hillsborough Law’

A new report into calls for a “Hillsborough Law”, published by parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR), has recommended the government consider introducing a statutory “duty of candour” for all public bodies.

Campaigners want the new legislation to prevent a repeat of the experiences of families of the 97 fans who were killed in the 1989 Hillsborough disaster from happening again.

In June 2021, two police forces agreed to pay damages to more than 600 survivors of the Hillsborough disaster and the family members of victims following a cover-up of the tragedy.

Louise Brookes, whose brother Andrew Mark Brookes was one of the Hillsborough victims, told Sky News that, while she welcomes the principle of a Hillsborough Law to prevent cover-ups in future, she is concerned at how seriously the duty of candour would be taken.

“You will never get people to tell the truth when it’s not in their best interests when they are protected by their bosses, when it’s the establishment,” she said.

“Until they start sending people to prison, nothing is going to change in this country.”

Pressure for a new law increased this week after the report of the inquiry into the infected blood scandal found it “could largely have been avoided” and that there was a “pervasive” cover-up to hide the truth.

The JCHR said it heard from witnesses who felt the lessons of Hillsborough “remained unlearnt” and some of the same issues continued to have an impact at other major hearings including the Manchester Arena inquiry.

“People need to understand that these cover-ups traumatise us for life,” Ms Brookes said.

She said victims of a series of scandals have experienced it.

Read more:
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Ms Brookes continued: “For us, the truth is these lies ruin our lives and have sent some people to their graves.

“Individuals need to find their moral compass.”

Last year, in a response to a report on Hillsborough by the former bishop of Liverpool, the Right Reverend James Jones, the government stopped short of introducing legislation, instead proposing a pledge to put the public interest ahead of its reputation.

But JCHR chairwoman Joanna Cherry KC said: “All of us on the human rights committee have huge respect and admiration for the courage and fortitude of the families of those who died at Hillsborough and the survivors. Just this week we have also seen how the victims of the infected blood scandal had to go through a similar struggle.

“It is shameful that their pain was compounded by the delays and obfuscation they faced in their search for the truth, and the decades they had to wait for justice.

“Even so many years later, lessons still have to be learnt to ensure that these failures are not repeated.”

Solicitor Elkan Abrahamson, a director of the Hillsborough Law Now campaign, told Sky News that the public was “fed up with officials lying all the time” and that victims were currently suffering a double injustice.

“There is an impetus from the public for this to be enacted.

“When you ask bereaved families what they want to achieve, almost always the answer is ‘We don’t want this to happen to anyone else’. When they see the government or other public officials covering up what went wrong that almost wounds them psychologically.

“It compounds the trauma they suffered in the first place. It is offensive, not just to the bereaved, but to us as a society.”

In response to the JCHR report, the Cabinet Office pointed to remarks by the Paymaster General John Glen in the Commons on the infected bloody inquiry report this week.

He told MPs that on issues like duty of candour “progress is being made in different ways”.