A FAMILY of asylum seekers fighting to stay in Nelson have won the support of Pendle Council.

Councillors agreed to do all they could to help after 13-year-old Crystal Karim made a desperate appeal at a council meeting.

Last week, Nigel Karim, his wife, Pearl and children Crystal and Calvin, 11, were taken to a detention centre in Bedford after police and immigration officials swooped on their home in Barkerhouse Road.

Following pressure from Pendle MP Gordon Prentice, they were allowed home while a second asylum application was considered.

The family fear they will be killed if they go back to Pakistan because Mr Karim converted to Christianity.

Their campaign has already got widespread support from their community.

Now councillors have vowed to investigate how they could help the family after Crystal's heartfelt plea.

The St John Fisher and Thomas Moore School, Colne, pupil told councillors how her dad converted to Christianity after the death of his father.

She said this and his marriage to her mother a Christian from birth had angered locals in Pakistan.

Crystal added: "Ever since then those people were putting pressure on my dad, calling him and saying things like I will kidnap your son if you don't convert back.

"Our family was under threat and there was only one way to stop this and that was to come to England. If we had not then one of us would have been killed."

Council leader Alan Davies told the meeting the case was another example of the government's failed immigration system. He added: "It is clearly a tragic situation you find yourselves in. We will investigate what we as a council can do.

"For a family that is settled to life in Pendle, to be treated in a way which, in other countries, criminals are not treated, is something we will not endorse any way.

"You are clearly well respected Pendle residents and are clearly the kind of families we want to maintain in Pendle. We wish you extremely good luck"