Scots girl aged 10 saved from deportation

• Precious Mhango

Precious Mhango and her mother Florence, 32, from Glasgow, who have lived in the UK for almost seven years, were taken from Dungavel detention centre in Lanarkshire and sent to Yarls Wood Immigration Centre in Bedfordshire at the weekend under a Home Office deportation order.

Mrs Mhango and Precious – who speaks with a Scottish accent and has been wholly educated in Glasgow – were told they would be deported.

SNP MSP Anne McLaughlin said Ms Mhango had phoned her yesterday evening from the Kenyan Airways plane. "Florence rang me at about 12 minutes past six. 'We're off the flight, we're going back to Yarls Wood', she told me."

Ms McLaughlin said she and her colleagues had sat in her Glasgow constituency office "in almost total silence" awaiting news. Ms McLaughlin had had little expectation that the situation would be resolved, despite an appeal last week to immigration minister Phil Woolas. A letter from Mr Woolas, written after 5pm yesterday, stated he "saw no compelling reason to help the family".

But Paul Chen, QC, lodged a judicial review earlier yesterday.

Last night, it was still uncertain how much time Ms Mhango has to make a case for being returned to Glasgow and to prevent deportation. Ms McLaughlin said: "What I think it does mean is that the Home Office has accepted that the advocate has come up with new information.

"I'm so scared to get people's hopes up. It's been awful here. We've got everything to fight for – all we have to do now is raise money for the judicial review."

Last Wednesday, Precious, a pupil at St Maria Goretti RC primary school in Glasgow, and her mother went to the Reporting Office in Brand Street, a UK Borders Agency bureau where Glasgow's asylum seekers must routinely sign in.

On arrival, Ms Mhango, a Malawian who came to Britain in February 2003 after fleeing an allegedly abusive marriage to Precious's father, was presented with removal papers, and she and her daughter were taken immediately to Dungavel, where those deemed ineligible for asylum are detained. The official document detailing the Kenyan Airways flight due to take them back to Malawi was dated for 7pm on 23 November, 2009.

Yesterday, Ms McLaughlin notified fellow supporters of the mother and daughter in their Cranhill community that Mr Chen had agreed to take on the case. "He was described to me as someone who specialises in stopping deportations and who can 'pull rabbits out of hats' and is in court trying for a judicial review," Ms McLaughlin wrote on a Facebook page set up to raise awareness of the Mhangos' plight.

Mr Chen's daily fee is 800, and Cranhill community members are campaigning for funds to pay for the judicial review.

Ms Mhango and Precious were previously held in Dungavel and Yarls Wood in July, but appealed on the grounds that Precious had lived more than half her life in the UK and would struggle to integrate in Malawi.

Campaigners say that, if returned to Malawi, Precious is very likely to be separated from her mother and placed with her father's family. According to the Rev Muriel Pearson, of Cranhill Parish Church, and other local church and community leaders, she may also face the threat of female circumcision. The Home Office, however, does not deem Precious's welfare to be at risk.

Ms Pearson said: "Precious is a very bright child, but since she came out of Dungavel (in the summer], she has been almost mute. Precious apparently had to be carried into the van – she was screaming and crying,"

The Rev Ian Galloway, convener of the Church of Scotland's Church and Society Council, who works with asylum seekers and refugees in the Gorbals area of Glasgow, said it was difficult to see the Mhangos' removal as anything other than "an inhuman act".

He went on: "It must be that the Home Office disbelieve Florence's story."

The Right Rev Bill Hewitt, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, has put the issue of child detention – a practice opposed by the Scottish Government but under the control of Westminster – at the top of the agenda for his annual meeting with Prime Minister Gordon Brown in Westminster this week.

Linda Dempster, of the UK Borders Agency in Scotland, has stressed that removal is only ever "a last resort". She told the BBC last week: "We would much rather a family whom our courts have found do not qualify for asylum or for humanitarian protection leave the UK voluntarily."

'Your case has been dismissed so you are being detained. I began to scream'

TOO traumatised to speak about being held at Dungavel earlier this year, Precious later committed the experience to paper …

D-Day, by Precious Mhango, age 10.

Thursday 30 July: We went to sign and we never came back home. After signing we were told to wait because someone wanted to speak to us. My heart started racing.

We were taken to a room, where I saw 5 or 6 giant men officers in blue jackets, black trousers and white shirts. They were so scary and they were staring at us. It was like we were in the court and had been found guilty of killing someone and now we were being handed over to prison guards.

We were locked into the room, my whole body was numb. A woman came in reading a pile of papers.

"Your case has been dismissed, today you're being detained," she said.

Blah blah blah, as she continued talking, I couldn't even listen to her. I started screaming "please, I don't want to go".

My mum too was screaming. The woman carried on reading, I kept screaming. She offered me some tissues and a drink. I said "no thanks".

The others were just watching us.

Shortly we were locked in the van going to Dungavel detention centre.

I was very upset. I couldn't stop thinking about my best friend ever, Maria.

I started thinking about school. I was so excited to go back and start Primary 6 as the summer holiday was about to finish.

After about one hour and a half, we were in Dungavel. It's a horrible place. No friends, no good fun and no smiles from my mum.

I called my friend to tell her the worst news and she screamed like someone was dead. I couldn't carry on talking to her, instead I gave the phone to my mum to calm her down. It was like a funeral inside the room.

Two days later we were taken to Yarls Wood (removal centre in Bedfordshire]. That's the worst place in my life. I lost hope that we were going to go back to Glasgow. There was no more happiness in my life. I never stopped praying.

I was sick in detention, my tonsils and my stomach were sore and I had a headache.

The day I was taken to the airport I was very weak but there was no mercy. At the last minute, we were told that the flight was stopped.

I prayed to be released so I could go back to Glasgow. I missed good food, like ice cream, McDonald's and KFC.

In the morning I went to the dining hall for breakfast and an officer asked me to go with her.

She told me that today we were going back to Glasgow.

When I arrived in Glasgow I couldn't wait to go and see Maria. When she saw me she hugged me for a while. She cried, she was so excited. I said to her "I missed you a million times" and she said she missed me too. We had lots of fun together, we played in her garden, we put on make-up, we went to the park and when we came back we made smoothies.

Although I am out of detention I am so scared of the Home Office because it's haunting me at night.

I hate Wednesdays because it's the day I have to go and sign. The Home Office says there is no excuse, whether I like it or not I have to go to sign. I can't escape.

I feel like I'm living in the darkness, I don't know when I'm going to see the light. A million thanks to people who are helping us while we are in hard times. It's hard times for me and my mum.

Scots girl aged 10 saved from deportation – for now