A PRESTON church has rallied round a distraught mother and her three children who fear they will be killed upon their return to Pakistan, when they are deported today. (Thursday)

The terrified woman, who has asked only to be identified as Mrs P, for fear that news of her deportation could reach Pakistan, believes that she and her three children aged 12, 11 and six could be murdered within hours of their return to their homeland.

The young Christian family were members of St Ignatius Roman Catholic Church, Preston.

Members of the congregation have been rallying round trying to help, but a last ditch effort to have their case re-opened failed yesterday.

The city's MP Mark Hendrick also tried to intervene but to no avail.

The family was arrested by police last week during a dawn raid on their Deepdale home. They were taken to a detention centre in Oakington, Cambridgeshire, more than a year after they had their final appeal for asylum turned down in March 2003.

Mrs P, has been living with family in Preston for three years. She says she is in fear of fundamentalists who believe her husband, a nurse, was responsible for the death of a Muslim woman under his care in a Pakistani hospital.

In Pakistan, a predominantly Islamic country, attacks on Christians are believed to have left more 30 people dead in the last 12 months.

A sobbing Mrs P, speaking from the detention centre, told The Citizen: "I am so afraid, I just don't know what will happen now.

"I want to stay in Britain, my children's lives and mine will be in danger when we get to Pakistan. We have made this our home. I thought we'd be safe here."

The two youngest children were pupils at St Ignatius RC Primary School and the eldest attended Christ the King RC High School. They did not even have chance to say goodbye to their school friends.

Father Hugh, said: "She and her children were very much part of the church community.

"Her family believe that she could be in serious danger upon her return, so our thoughts and prayers are now with her, and her children."

Mrs P's desperate brother-in-law, who lives in Preston, added: "We are just so upset now, we don't know what is going to happen, it is in God's hands now."

The Home Office would not disclose details of the deportation -- Mrs P and her three children could already be on a flight back to Pakistan as you read this.

The 43-year-old and her children came to Preston in August 2001 after spending three years in hiding in Pakistan when her husband was blamed for the death of a woman at the hospital where he worked.

The family, who are all Catholics, were forced into hiding in 1998 after death threats from radical Muslims. Mrs P's husband remains in a secret location in Pakistan and has had limited contact with his young family.

Mrs P's application for asylum was turned down because she and her children are not perceived to be in danger in Pakistan.

Mr Hendrick said: "This is a very sad case in which people genuinely in fear for their safety have been rejected asylum and most likely will face a degree of discrimination and possibly harm."

Mrs P's solicitor, Manchester-based Peter Thornhill, added: "Unfortunately there is nothing more that can be done, all the legal arguments have been exhausted."